


Hellhounds and Ghosts | Overwatch

by AChesireSmile



Series: Hellhounds and Ghosts [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amelie and Karou could commit world domination in a day, Angst, BAMFQ means badass motherfucking queen, Character Death, Demisexuality, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Femme Fatale, Freeform, Gabriel Reyes Pines after Quiet, Gen, Healthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Karou and Quiet made me feel so much, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Polyamory, Quiet adopts like five fucking children in the future, Slow Build, Slow Burn, The Hellhounds are vigilantes, Violence, and that 6ft tall Romanian has a fiancee, did someone say 6ft tall Romanian protagonist, im out of my comfort zone with the magnitude of this fandom, minor torture, or atleast relationships trying to be healthy, taking a lot of liberties with the worldbuilding, the 6ft tall Romanian is 10 layers of fucking angst and is a BAMFQ, this is going on longterm because I don't do short ass stories, you guys are getting a 6ft tall Romanian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-01-06 16:44:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18392336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AChesireSmile/pseuds/AChesireSmile
Summary: She never thought she would be the one to inspire the wildness and mystery of Quiet.And she never thought that she would be the one to break her too.





	1. Those in the Shadows

_It was many and many a year ago_ …

 _In a kingdom by the sea_ …

The scope absorbs the light, gives a glint and disappears as quickly in the distance. The wind is favorable, the hanging cloths give them shade and cover, the world is silent for only a moment as the citizens below begin the day. The day is only starting, the mission would run parallel with it as well.

 _In this kingdom by the sea_ ,

 _A wind blew out of a cloud_ , _chilling_ …

The dark, dark eyes she had been born with, the hunger of a wolf that lays behind them waiting with the whole time of the world to begin its hunt, is a sight to behold. It is a sight to watch her as she lays, sprawled upon her front with only the grace that a lounging goddess should have. But there she is, in all her smooth curves, sharp lines and steady, scarred hands.

The blue, blue hair shines in the light. Her companion moves, shifts closer to the wolf without the caution one should have with someone so wild, so untamed and yet so, so sinuous with the gift of the gods that favored her. They found her so lovely with all that darkness and mystery. With an increasing affinity towards her, they gifted her with their own grace as a token of their predilection.

Those dark, dark eyes shift, the leonine glint has the other one shiver with pleasure at the soft and tender affection aimed at her. So, so beautiful— if not so, so striking. She is always so modest, would say she had far too many scars, that she is the reflection of the world’s cruelty.

It is true, that she had so many, the both of them counted all of them when shadows covered them and starlight as their only guide in the dark. But the one with blue, blue hair countered that the world made her stronger, rebuilt her and prepared her for the future. And that she is still alive, with her and with the others.

 _So that her highborn kingsmen came_ ,

 _And bore her away from me_ …

The commlink in both of their ears sounds off, speaking of the others being position and for the two snipers to be ready for the reaction of the rest of the world. The wolf ignores them in favor of smiling fondly at her, her companion blushes underneath her scrutiny and the obvious display of warm affection. The blue, blue hair gets pushed away from her shoulder with a gentle wave of the wolf’s hand— a small gesture meant to fill in for her absence of reciprocation.

_To shut her up in a sepulchre,_

_In this kingdom by the sea…_

The sniper flicks her eyes back to her scope, smoothing her form to fit back to the trigger of her rifle and finding the target once more in the scope. A savage glee blooms in her heart when her companion only moves closer, to seek warmth and more of her attention. A game of wickedness, a test of will— sometimes, she wins, and other times, she loses. But in the end, it is always to be rewarded with the sweetness and balminess of her companion.

 _For the moon never beams_ , _without giving me dreams_ ,

 _And the stars never rise_ , _but I feel the bright eyes_ …

To the wolf, she is the bright light in the day as well as she is the bright star in the sky of night.

Her blue, blue hair is hastily braided— only a small imperfection that adds to her lovely visage. Her eyes are amber, dark honey with the clever, sly intelligence she rarely shows to the others. She is so good with playing people like puppets, getting the information and slipping away like nothing more than an imaginary shade. The curves of her face elicit nothing but attention from the wolf, the high cheekbones and sinful pouting mouth has a different type of hunger grow.

Her mouth is full of verse and song. A lull and roll of her tongue a sweet poem and sigh at the lobe of the wolf’s ear. She is wonderful diablerie, she is mischief and sin behind half-lidded eyes and airy breathing. The melody is saccharine and evocative along with the slow roaming of her dove hands.

The wolf huskily laughs when the commlinks tell them to stop fooling around. They knew that the pair always did this.

There is a disturbance in the air, however, which halts the roaming of the wolf’s lover. A wisp in the breeze, a silence before the beginning of a building storm, the snipers refocus on the distance. _There_ , there is a sharp intrusion of gunfire and blasting explosions. There are others invading the play and causing disorder in the world.

 _And so_ , _all the night-tide_ , _I lie down by the side_

 _Of my darling_ — _my darling_ — _my life and my bride_ ,

 _In her sepulchre there by the sea_ ,

 _In her tomb by the sounding sea_.

The wolf frowns along with her blue, blue lover. The game is over, the mission is now.

They would use the distraction of the distant gunfire and explosions of another group to their advantage. The commlink opens in a rattle of questioning. The snipers do not answer, for they do not know but they are watching what occurs in the distance. It seems like there are others who are on a mission as well.

But this is Morocco, not much goes through this region since the war ravaged the land. Not even the black market had much activity here, where this once used to be a place that thrived off illicit dealings amidst the beauty of the country it used to be. It used to be ahead of its time, this was the place of creativity and mixtures of cultures and traditions when the rest of the world had been a century behind on the relativity of people. But like all things, this country had been ruined by the rest of the world, by the Omnic Crisis and the war that lead on for so long.

The world is still trembling in the remembrance of the war’s end.

The commlinks open up, the captain’s dulcet tones begin with the mission’s initiation.

The wolf laughs once more, deep and sultry, her hand finds the curve of her paramour’s chin without looking away from the scope. The blue, blue hair shifts in the light and a lover’s sigh leaves her mouth, light and breathy.

“Watch them, Karou. I am taking the lead for this dance, it seems,” the blue braid is in the wolf’s peripheral vision as the sniper adjusts her scope’s sight, carefully to the right to line up the shot.

Karou’s dark amber eyes look through her own scope, “How quaint… six-man team in a lot of black and a couple of lab coats. Does it not make you wonder what exactly is going on there?”

The wolf remains quiet and soon enough, the mission is starting.

The UN politician that she never quite cared to know the name of is now rushing in the view of their office window, catching at papers and stuffing it into a suitcase. Those papers were the real objective, so long as they were readable it would be fine with a splash of red. The politician’s bodyguards begin to file out of the room, gunfire in the building must have started from both the way they rush and because the snipers can hear the gunfire in their comms.

“Please, tell me you have a visual, Quiet. These bodyguards are boring to kill.”

The wolf does not answer to the inquiry, Quiet does not blink even as she lines up the shot another inch to the right and slowly bends her index finger upon the trigger.

“ _Nu te poți ascunde în umbră_ ,” Quiet pulls the trigger and does not miss.

The target paints his desk and the papers and the designer leather suitcase in red. The guards are looking out through the window in bewilderment, but they do not see the snipers’ perch five miles away. The recoil on Quiet’s shoulder is somewhat of a pain but does not stop her from outing the rest of the sheep. She takes out four and lets the fifth run away and out of the office, just to allow for the others to have some sort of fun.

Karou is now chortling. Quiet does not look away from her scope but she is smiling at the sound of her lover’s laughter.

“Pray tell, _dragostea mea_ , what is funny?”

Karou hums but does not explain any further than her answer of, “ _Problémy_.”

Quiet watches as the others on the commlink confirm the retrieval of the papers from the politician’s office. Their hacker is a slim little thing that slips in and out of sight from Quiet’s scope view. The bright purples and the smoky black the only flash of color that moves out from the office by the time the commlink activates back on again.

“Papers retrieved, time to head out and skip town. Quiet, Karou, find your way to the extraction point.”

Quiet slowly rolls her shoulders, pushes with her hands to get upright to her knees and hauls her rifle up as she leverages herself to stand upon her feet. She looks over to the distance to where Karou is looking to through her own rifle’s scope. It is time to leave and yet the wolf’s companion is not moving. Karou did love to watch others in combat.

“What’s the _scandalagii_ doing now, Karou?”

The blue haired sniper moves from the scope and brings herself back up to stand as well. She shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly, poise ever so composed and relaxed. Quiet picks up one of the supply bags shaded by the cloths hanging overhead, a crossbody bag that held an emitter, shield and extra ammo, and hands it to her lover. The Czech sniper pulls at the straps with an appreciative smile on her face.

“They seem to be caught up, _zastavit_. Think we should ask if they need help?”

Quiet lifts a questioning brow. The commlinks sound off, their disgruntled pack members questioning if they were on the move yet. Karou frowns. Quiet sighs at the sight of her lover’s discomfort— she always was one to have a bleeding heart. But she would never have Karou any other way— someone needed to be kind and caring enough to help others. Quiet had spent many years doing the opposite, following Karou’s lead always helped with atoning for her past.

Karou watches expectantly as Quiet presses at the commlink in her left ear, “Karou and I think we should offer some assistance to the troublemakers that are causing a ruckus just down away from our position. Shall we, captain?”

The comms are silent for only a moment, the deep voice of their captain sounding off, “They appear to be in the way of your extraction point— by all means, make your way there, Quiet, Karou.”

It was a lie. They could easily make it so they would not need to get too close to the extraction point. But this, this is their way of life. To help others and to fight to better the lives of others. That and the captain had a bleeding heart just as well. Bunch of softies.

Karou’s bright smile elevates Quiet’s heartrate. Despite the years of them being side by side, Quiet’s heart never acclimated when she decided to follow after her blue-haired lover. Quiet feigns a fake sigh, strapping on the other crossbody bag and goes closer to the edge of the roof. When she turns back around, the wolf then offers her folded hands as she bends at the knee for Karou.

Time to get a move on, if the team wanted to help that six-man team and the people in the lab coats.

The blue haired sniper steps back, takes off running and then steps onto Quiet’s hands to be flung over the roof’s edges. Karou has the elegance to fly almost swanlike through the air as it would glide through water. The sniper lands onto the adjacent roof with a tuck and roll. The dust leaves an imprint on her black clothes and she offers a thumbs up to Quiet.

The wolf can easily jump the distance.

Quiet slings her rifle over her shoulder and chest moving to take an additional few steps than Karou previously did. With a breath, she takes off running towards the same edge she once kneeled at and when her foot is upon the ledge, she pushes herself off. Being in the air makes her feel weightless and it is exhilarating— rooftop jumping had been a good way to learn parkour, it ups the anticipation when there is a possibility of falling to certain injury and possible death.

After Quiet lands with a roll and does not allow herself to do a second, to buffer the impact in favor of her much larger rifle, she grunts with her landing. The momentum throws her into taking a few extra steps but as she catches sight of the next rooftop being a jumpable one to not assist Karou with, she takes the leap of faith instead of stopping.

Karou is laughing, chaotically free and wonderfully gorgeous. The two snipers take to roof jumping a few additional times before they finally find a position that allows them the sight of seeing what exactly is going on. Karou had counted a team of six men and some people in lab coats. Quiet confirmed the count with a swift sweep of her eyes.

And Karou had not been kidding with the trouble.

There are cyborgs and mercenaries, well equipped for ambushing and trapping, a dangerous mix and volatile for such a small group to be on the defensive. Quiet frowns when she latches onto the thought of how they are all sharing the same red plates and strange insignias somewhere on their person. She had heard small chatters regarding an organization rising up. Were these people part of that very same organization?

There is a man yelling out orders, dual wielding shotguns and keeping the fire solely focused on him. One of the other men has a holographic screen out, crouched behind a shield barrier emitter, shouting that the dropship has been called for, finally. The team looked somewhat ragged, with the panicking of their medic and the rest of the assault portion of the team. But the leader seemed undeterred, laser focused on keeping his people alive.

The man has a black beanie on top of his head, rather than an actual helmet or something that could be useful to help him with tactical strategy. A muscular frame that could only be termed as massive. But not as massive as their captain. He had facial scars too. Quiet smiles a little at that.

“Awfully handsome that one…” Karou whistles nonchalantly.

Quiet laughs then and there. Only the blue-haired Czech would be the one to voice such opinions aloud.

Quiet flicks open a holographic screen to count the mercenaries and cyborgs and the others on the ground level within the street, “Not planning on breaking my heart, are you, _dragostea_?”

Karou feigns a hand over her heart, smiling a wicked grin and wiggling a fine brow, “Never, _miláčku_. _Myslíš, že je jedním z těch, co hrají hezky_?”

Quiet closes the screen when the full body count and calculations finished. She offers her joined hands, to vault Karou over to provide cover on the other side of the street, as she huffs lowly at the question. Karou straps her rifle over her shoulder again. In the background, the mercenaries and the team lead by the man with the beanie are still fighting. The others would be coming in shortly enough.

“Regardless, if he is the type to play nice, we are just giving assistance,” the wolf smiles as Karou pouts melodramatically.

“Shame,” Karou winks before she takes off to run and flies when Quiet vaults her overhead.

Quiet faces Karou, the both of them unslinging their rifles and confirming their full cartridges and supplies. The rest of the team are closing in now. The man with the beanie is keeping the mercenaries’ attention and the cyborgs are being held back by the rest of the team. And they need to get a move on.

Quiet opens the commlink, “Captain, we are in position. ETA?”

She sniffs when she spots two bodies closing in at the side of the man in the beanie.

“Begin.”

Then there is a shot that sounds off clear as a bell. There is only one person who wields Desert Eagles that the snipers can recognize the owner as. A cyborg receives the shot, it punches its way through the neck and has the entire body jerk to a stop. The bullet wound leaves a gaping wound in its wake that fills with blood and gushes out rather obscenely. It captures the attention of all the mercenaries and the six-man team.

Before both the snipers can begin their own attack, they hear someone yelling, “Alright, ye trigger happy fucks! Let’s fuck some shit up!”

Karou giggles. Quiet chuckles low. The commlinks open once more. The captain is just approaching, the twins had closed in faster, and both the hacker and healer were finding their way to the alleyway; they were in contact with the scientists and their two-person retinue that was protecting said scientists. That left the six-man team down to four.

Quiet watches the man in the beanie, he just ran out of ammo from his shotguns. She bursts out in laughter as the man demolishes one of the mercenaries by using the shotgun as a makeshift bat. It is interesting to see such a powerful, aggressive approach to a fight.

Despite Quiet’s height, she had no such strength that could compare to the man with the shotguns on the floor level. She carefully taps are her sides, feeling the circular, smooth moonblades that are hooked to her. They were the backups to her rifle and they had saved her life so many times when she had been forced into close quarter combat.

She never claimed to be one to fight fair. She fought dirty and she never would apologize for it.

Quiet could have stopped the cyborg that snuck up on the man, she really could have. But that would draw attention to both her and Karou. Whenever snipers are by themselves, when they are revealed to be on the field, it has people more alert and when on the move; they seek out the less versatile snipers. Karou’s blue hair is as good as a beacon to catch anyone’s attention but also Quiet would wait upon the captain’s order. Even if she had been his left hand, his second in command, she is never one to move unless it was unavoidable.

He is handsome, Quiet thinks. He is no model, he is not some traditional American beauty— especially with the way he curses in fluent Spanish after he gets choked by the cyborg. But he has the rugged, rough around the edges, type down to a T.

The man in the beanie is a soldier, through and through, no one gets those muscles without some serious training. He has authority in his voiced orders, he has the will of a war god. It is interesting to find someone like that in the middle of a mess like this.

Karou always did have the right instincts when it came to follow the will of the world.

“Karou, Quiet, thin out the hostiles. Calum and Conall, you know the drill.”

The snipers begin sprinting off to find the perfect perch. This is another mission of helping others, another gunfight to bring up the adrenaline. Either way, this is just her life. And she would not have it any other way.

She catches sight of the team medic approaching the man in the beanie, she heard him be called _commander_. Now that, that is a real interesting thing. Quiet keeps jumping over the edges, Karou mirroring her as well in the tactical movement. Everything about this mission just continues to get more fascinating.

Quiet quickly touches down on the roof that seemed the best for their advantage, “Time to dance, _dragostea_.”

Karou is smiling in the distance, “But of course, _moje láska_.”

“Hellhounds, time to clean house,” the captain is bellowing.

Quiet fires first. She takes out a mercenary that closed in on the hacker of the six-man team.

Karou shoots another one that got too close to the man in the beanie. And a dropship is appearing from the sky now, slowly lowering itself just back where Quiet and Karou had started with their roof jumping. A small but roomy aircraft that could hold all of the man in the beanie’s team and the scientists. It could also take the addition of the Hellhounds.

“Karou, watch the team. I’ve got the _aliaţii_ ,” Quiet shoots when Calum kicks up a mercenary in the air.

Karou responds with shooting a mercenary in the heart and finishing him off with a headshot that closed in on Conall. The demolitionist had explosives in his hands.

The scientists are on the move towards the ship, the wolf adjusts her position to favor the man in the beanie as he protects the scientists and his people. There is nothing but the flying of bullets and the occasional orders from the man in the beanie being heard.

When Conall’s explosives go off, Quiet’s hearing is slightly tweaked out. Karou had ducked before she returned to shooting. But even with her right ear ringing, Quiet could still hear from it and the left ear still had the commlink in with the voice of the hacker and their healer speaking. She grunts out into the commlink of her displeasure of not being more thoroughly warned.

The sniper continues covering for the man in the beanie. And then someone decides to focus on Karou. Never would Karou ever get hurt with Quiet around. Never. Quiet sees red and her hearing is no longer a matter, the wolf stands up to her full height and shoots at the cyborgs with the automatic machine guns. She feels a sadistic, primal glee when she watches the cyborg fall dead with a bullet in between the eyes.

And then the world is shaking with Conall’s second bomb going off. Her hearing in her right ear is definitely gone now.

“ _La naiba_ , Conall, _ne avertizeze data viitoare_!”

A stream of Romanian curses leaves Quiet after that, evoking nothing but laughter from Karou and Calum going ballistic at the volume of Quiet’s voice. Conall apologizes dispassionately. He is never sorry for his actions, the little shit that he is. Quiet threatens him over the commlink that she would wring his neck out and then he would truly be sorry.

The man in the beanie had said something to the Hellhound hacker and healer, Quiet had not quite realized that he had moved closer to dropship when she had been cursing at the demolitionist. Soon enough, the commlink is open once more as the snipers keep raining their shots down.

“The dropship is open for us, should we get on, captain?”

Now, this mission is just strangely becoming more and more thrilling— the man in the beanie should not be so trusting. Was he that gullible or was he just too damn arrogant to think he could take them all on? Who would be so unquestioning about strangers coming to aid from out of nowhere?

The captain’s monster of a rifle goes off before he answers, “Our extraction point changed the second we came to help. Sun, Sato, double time, now.”

Karou is quick to shoot down any who go after the Hellhound healer and hacker. Quiet continues to cover for the captain and the twins, muttering darkly of Conall’s future which would involve pain and some suffering. She might or might not just decide to wipe him into nothing but a smear on the mats when this is all over.

Conall has the good sense to not goad Quiet into more threats upon his life by staying _quiet_.

“Captain, you and the twins are cleared to get to the dropship with the lovers to cover you.”

Karou stands, taking off in a sprint to follow the twins. Quiet fluidly shifts on her feet, running from her position and begins jumping as well, following the captain’s pace. Karou always got to safety first, with whoever else would be there. Quiet never compromised on that when it came down to the evacuation plans that the Hellhound healer strategized.

When Karou swiftly continues on, getting closer and closer to the dropship, Quiet halts on the roof with the captain just below her new perch. Quiet keeps her standing position, not bothering with cover as the captain is keeping the attention mostly on him. She shoots and does not miss. She continues shooting even when the cyborgs and mercenaries realize that she is just there above them, like a scavenger flying above head.

She ignores the instinct to duck, she wanted this mission over with so she could get a nap in on that dropship. Not the most comfortable of places but she felt like she deserved the reprieve of assassinating some politician and Karou getting shot at when the Hellhounds decided to help these people. She both loathed and enjoyed this part of the mission— to kill and to protect, allowing Karou to be a part of the danger but to also have some impact on bettering the world.

She ignores the feeling of someone watching her with intent. She knew that Karou usually turned heads— at first, with her blue hair and beautiful face, and afterwards, with her witty tongue and bright smiles. Quiet never cared for anyone to look at her, she never needed the validation. Narcissism did not suit her, but Karou had whipped her into thinking better of herself.

Something whizzes by her right ear; her hearing is returning— she would still be taking Conall to the mats after this and teach him to be more thorough in his warnings. The demolitionist is such a brat. She voices it out to Conall through the comms, only to have Callum snorting in the commlink.

The Darrows were such little shits.

“Quiet, the captain and the twins are closing in on the dropship— the mercenaries are still going on strong, do what you need to take care of the last of the sheep.”

Now, that is more like it. Quiet chucks down the empty cartridge and replaces the new one into her rifle. The Darrows get to the dropship after she takes out just a few more of the mercenaries. They were nothing more than squishy, unworthy pieces of shit. She sees the same insignia on a cyborg that gets downed by the captain.

The shape of it is a mocking thing—

“Zion, take a picture of the insignia on my commlink’s camera.”

The hacker’s automatic system does so at Quiet’s command.

Sato speaks into the line, “Quiet, take out those cyborgs before the captain gets within their range!”

Quiet nearly twists her ankle to aim down at the cyborgs but she is quick to accomplish the task. She waves away the appreciative nod from her captain. She would always have his back— he is, after all, her soulbound.

After the captain closes in on the dropship, she is on the move once more, shooting even as she is jumping off the roof to get to the ground level. When the boosters on the dropship seem to intensify, she knows then she needs to run faster. She had heard the man in the beanie, _commander_ , order for the pilots to wait.

How thoughtful.

Just on the precipice of being on the dropship, when her soulbound is warning her of something— something she cannot grasp on with her limited hearing— she feels like something just ran her over. Damn, she had not noticed that she had been in the range of the approaching enemy.

It felt like getting thrown out to sea all over again, the rush of air, the impact of falling into the water— but this time, she is crashing into a wall. Fuck, that _fucking_ hurt. But unlike having endured the raging waves of the sea, the wall does not break any of her bones.

She is cursing in a stream of Romanian now when she realizes that she had dropped her rifle to the ground at the unexpected force of being tackled. As an automatic instinct, she is clawing at the cyborg’s face. The flash of blue from her fingernails calms her though.

And then, she remembers her other weapons.

She laughs, bearing her teeth right into the cyborg, “ _Sunt nenorocit cu persoana greșită_ ,” she ignores the confusion on the cyborg’s face and the squeezing of his fingers around her neck.

“ _Quiet_!!!”

 _Karou_ —

Her arm moves faster than her racing mind, ignoring the pain at her side and the burning in her neck. She is gasping out, lungs in a revolt against the loss of air. Nothing matters more than getting back to Karou, she made a promise to always get to Karou. Her body is moving on automatic, grabbing her rifle from the ground and running her heart out for the dropship once more.

She growls underneath her breath and jumps just when the platform of the dropship is raising up. She is yanked forward when she reaches out to the nearest body. And the world is spinning, the world is roaring with the adrenaline in her veins spiked impossibly high. She breathes out to slow her beating heart, she inhales to replenish her body with the air of the dropship.

She made it.

Goddamn.

And now she is staring into smoldering dark eyes of the man in the beanie.

Well, damn, he really is attractive— especially this close up to see whole of him. She is still holding onto his forearm with her tight grip, he did not seem to mind the physical contact and he is staring at her, taciturn, maybe even speechless. It is probably not every day that he meets someone close to him in height.

She looks down from his eyes to his neck, clucking her tongue in the similar bruises that decorate her own. This must have been karma for not helping him out earlier— she could deal with that. But if he looked that bad, then she probably looked worse, her skin is painfully paler than his darker, deeply tanned skin. She takes in the facial scars, multiples ones scattered all over, nothing like her soulbound. There is an interesting scar that is on his bottom lip— she feels the scar on her upper lip, on the opposite side.

They must have made quite a mirror image of misplaced scars.

And she finds that amusing all on its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a little inspired by the Annabel Lee poem written by Edgar Allen Poe. The bits I wrote in reference to future chapters.
> 
> Romanian  
> Nu te poți ascunde în umbră - You cannot hide in the shadows  
> dragostea mea - my love  
> scandalagii - troublemakers  
> dragostea - love  
> aliaţii - allies/friendlies  
> La naiba, ne avertizeze data viitoare - damn it, warn us next time  
> Sunt nenorocit cu persoana greșită - you are fucking with the wrong person
> 
> Czech  
> Problémy - trouble, problem  
> zastavit - stop  
> miláčku - my darling  
> Myslíš, že je jedním z těch, co hrají hezky - do you think he is type to play nicely  
> moje láska - my love


	2. Hellhounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because why not do a chapter with Gabriel's POV?  
> And also, this is the 'oh, no, they are hot' moment.  
> Let's be honest, Gabriel is the type to fall hard and fast.

“Alright, ye trigger happy fucks! Let’s fuck some shit up!”

Well… that was one way to get things started. Who the fuck even said that?

Blackwatch Commander Gabriel Reyes had no patience for any of this anymore. The extraction mission turned siege had been lasting for too long now— the mission required getting the scientists out, fast and unseen.

But goddamn, the information had been absolute shit, everything about this mission had been utter fucking shit. And he quickly became familiar with the feeling of— everything about this mission had been doomed to fail, that everything riding on this mission had meant for him to fail— especially in regard of the newly minted black ops division that secreted the dirty side of Overwatch. And he had been made the goddamn commander of it, demoted from being the Strike Commander of Overwatch to do all the dark and dirty in Blackwatch. Fuck all of this.

He ran out of ammo, he grunted in annoyance. It is petty thinking about the fact that the whole goddamn world must be doing these things just to spite him but he supposed that it is just a part of being Blackwatch now. He resorts to taking out another of the enemy out by clotheslining them in the neck with his shotgun and then crushing their neck under the heel of his metal boot.

One of his agents, part of the assault team, takes out another with a clean shot. They were already down to four as he had ordered two of his agents to stay behind and guard the scientists. And the hacker is trying their best with communicating back to headquarters on their progress.

The single medic is flitting between everyone to make sure they were not too hurt. The puny pistol in their hand is a pathetic thing. Gabriel made mental notes to train the medics in Blackwatch to wield something more offensive than just a pistol. Did he already say _fuck_ all of this?

“Commander!” A warning, full of desperation and fear for _him_.

He turned and before he knew it, he is pushed hard into a wall with his back. The fact that he got caught off guard during his internalizing cursing, clutching at the armored hand squeezing the air out of his throat, just spelled out even more shit for the day. He thrashes, trying to give himself something to be used against the cyborg now trying to kill him. God damn this whole mission to hell.

Absolute, utter fucking shit. He could not wait for this mission to be over. He is going to tear into the whole tech maintenance team for letting this mission even get to his desk.

“Hellhounds, spread out!”

Something exploded, or Gabriel had thought that is what sounded off amidst him being strangled— being dangled, by the throat in the air, from a cyborg three times his own size tends to stop him from thinking straight. Goddamn, his throat is burning and he can’t fucking breathe. He punched at the cyborg’s arm but it’s the explosion or whatever it is that ends up having the cyborg release Gabriel.

The red painted plates of the cyborg get painted in black with the explosive ammo that connected to the body. And another thundering boom has the cyborg spinning and falling to the ground.

He sucks in a breath harshly, coughing and sputtering before someone has their hand on his shoulder as though to reassure him that he is still alive. He is still on the ground, cursing left and right in indistinguishable Spanish, clutching at his neck until another hand is pulling him into a standing position. He felt weightless as he is forced up back onto his own feet, still coughing out violently for air. The hands on him belonged to someone nowhere near to his own size. Gabriel Reyes is a large man, but this one is larger than _him_.

And this newcomer is not one of his own men.

The man has a goddamn canon of a pulse rifle strapped onto his shoulder and his fists looked like the size of Gabriel’s head. The size of the man reminds him of Wilheim Reindhardt, the Crusader who had been made lieutenant in the ranks of Overwatch. This one had an underlying intelligence that changed the friendly look that would rival Reindhardt.

This man was by no means someone to be matched in size or strength. And this observation is not something that is helping Gabriel, in wanting to know why this man helped him and is not one of his own teammates. But then again, everyone had their positions and a ton of other shit to deal with.

The newcomer’s face is scarred to hell, they are old considering that the scars are only silver and shiny on his skin and resembling claw marks of a beast that had been aiming to claw his face off. They stretch rather smoothly as he smiles down at Gabriel. The man’s head of full white hair is long enough to be pulled into a secure bun, his weathered, gleaming green eyes have deep set wrinkles that are matching to the laugh lines on the sides of his bearded mouth.

The grandfatherly soldier is chuckling, “Good to see you still kicking, we’ve got this handled.”

Another mercenary falls to the ground, head gone in a miniature explosion, and Gabriel picks up on the distinct sound of snipers.

His voice is as booming as the canon strapped to his shoulder. Gabriel can only blink as he listens to the man who had saved him just moments ago. Where did he even come from— a man that overwhelming and forthcoming could not sneak himself anywhere. How did Gabriel’s agents miss him?

He is letting go of Gabriel after patting him on the shoulders with all that mortal, musclebound strength. He grabs at his canon with one hand, with his free hand the older man pushes two fingers into his commlink that is attached to his left ear.

“Karou, Quiet, thin out the hostiles. Calum and Conall, you know the drill,” he begins to move away from Gabriel and begins his assault.

One of Gabriel’s agents, the Blackwatch emblem had been splashed in a splatter of blood, rushes forth to Gabriel with the assigned medic who is panicking, wide-eyed and sputtering, at Gabriel’s newest injuries. But Gabriel can only watch as he catches the sight of two feminine shadows darting forth on the opposite _roofs_ of some buildings, just a little further ahead in the street. He thinks one of them had looked back slightly to see how he fared after being nearly choked to death.

When had they gotten up there? Who were these people and where did they even come from? All those questions are a swirling vortex that only serves to further aggravate Gabriel’s spinning head. What a goddamn mess.

He cracks his neck just turning to take to watching as two male figures are now on the sides of the man who saved Gabriel. The distinct shots of the Desert Eagles are partnered with a carbine of some sort. Seriously, what the hell? Where did these— what did the elder call this motley crew? Oh, right, where did these _Hellhounds,_  come from?

The pair of feminine shadows jump across the building tops, one has a deep red scarf while the other had a lively blue one. Or that is what Gabriel thinks it is that is covering the sniper’s head from the harsh sun. Hell, if he could tell what is happening anymore— this goddamn mess of a goddamn mission.

The pair rain down their onslaught with their sniper rifles, when they find their positions favorable in both cover and lethal advantage. The three men are joined with two more people; a vivacious, bright woman and another man whose solemn face seems set on looking as miserable as humanly possible to date.

They take to their positions behind the three men-berserker frontal team.

The woman is grinning like an impish little thing that has no reserves for fighting and trash talking her enemies into a permanent state of death, a holographic screen in front of her as she types much faster than any typical hacker should. The hacker had a rather interesting looking staff in her hands as well, something she can detach from her hip and have it eject to its full length that is practically as tall as herself.

Was that a spark at the ends?

The man by her side has small patches adorning his upper arm, a medic patch and another that resembles something like a panther’s jaws and a pair of looks like circular disks secured to his wrists by electrical bands around his sleeves. He is also throwing up shield emitters on the sides to protect the Blackwatch agents and does the same for his own team. A small healing emitter is in one hand while the other is holding onto what looks like a tablet— both strategist and healer, it seems.

And then suddenly, when a mercenary advances too close to the hacker and the healer, he is unhooking those disks from his wrists. With a flick of one wrist, suddenly, the mercenary is falling to their knees, _headless_ and switching in their death. At least, this healer could look after himself.

Gabriel feels his eyebrows raise naturally when he sees the disk flying back to the healer in a clean, rounding arc in the air. A bit of red still gleams on the circular blade.

“Hellhounds, time to clean house,” the scarred, older male along with the two younger men take to eliminating the rest of the cyborgs and mercenaries.

The dropship is rearing up now to the backs of the Blackwatch and the Hellhounds. About goddamn time— Gabriel brings up the rear with another of his agents, taking out the stragglers outside of the three-man team. He notices that some of the mercenaries drop like rocks in water whenever he has his sight on others. He would have to thank those snipers after this, somehow.

“Ya-hoo, eat this!!!”

One of the younger men by the scarred elder is kicking up his steel-toed boot, landing his foot into the chest of a cyborg and forcing them away with his strength. One of the female snipers, the one with the red scarf, takes the headshot to the cyborg that is thrown through the air and then promptly returns to taking out approaching hostiles on the sides of Gabriel’s agents and himself.

The sniper’s counterpart, with the blue scarf, is thinning the streets full of enemy mercenaries, cyborgs and humans alike. She has speed and good, innate reflexes to remain fluid in shifting her position. The red sniper provides the cover for the Blackwatch agents that are running for the dropship at Gabriel’s commands to take the scientists away from the danger.

The other one of the three-man assault team, presumably the elder of the two, is readying to throw a culmination of grenades. He is calmly grunting as he finishes the bundle of explosives.

“Boom…”

The younger man is cackling like a hellbound maniac, “Fire in the hole, assholes!”

Gabriel thought these guys were only just that; maniacs ready to descend right into hell and take the throne for themselves. The thought of these _Hellhounds_ looking like they were having the most fun in a place as miserable as this is just something that gives him a reeling headache. Jack is going to be pissed with how shit this operation turned out.

The three men find cover in the alleyways of the street, the hacker and healer bring up a fortified shield for themselves. And then the world is shaking. Gabriel could not believe that an explosion could be made so fucking catastrophic in such a small space. The boom throws everyone to the ground. Gabriel barely recovers, standing back up and helping one of his agents back to their feet.

The snipers are still thinning out the hordes of mercenaries on the high perches. Someone begins shooting at the blue sniper, forcing the other to stand up and it does not last long for the red sniper to eliminate them. Even with the distance, Gabriel could tell that the sniper took it personally that the other had been targeted— obviously protective of her companion.

And then, the earth is shaking again, one more booming crash brings up heat and fire and a storm of force that pushes Gabriel back down to the floor of the dropship. The street has new twin craters in the middle now. But none of the buildings had been damaged aside from being covered in black ash, the remaining mercenaries are struggling to get back up and the Hellhounds are still standing as the victors.

The two younger males high five as the healer and hacker reposition themselves as guides for their team. The snipers are relentless in both covering Gabriel’s agents and their own people.

“Wooo! That’s one hell of an explosion! Hahahaaa!”

The scarred elder blasts a few more rounds from his monstrosity of a canon rifle— the booms are thunderous and unmatched by even the bombs that the demolitionist had thrown. There is still a shit ton of the mercenaries, despite the combined efforts of the female snipers and the berserkers. And yet, they seemed unfazed, nearly tranquil with the odds against them. They had experience with situations like this.

“Shit, Quiet, no need to yell at all of us!”

The hacker is howling at whatever it is said being on the line between the Hellhounds. She is impressive when she bashes in a mercenary’s skull with her staff and quick to switch back to her holographic screen to make sure everyone is covered with her spectator system. The healer is scowling more than ever, also seeming to be cursing the demolitionist with some passive aggressive tone. The disks do not leave his wrists as he taps aggressively on his tablet. The twins are simply high fiving again before they return to business with devilish smiles on their faces.

There are far too many, too much for the Hellhounds still spread out on the streets, blocking the path to the Blackwatch agents who filled themselves on the dropship. The reinforcements were coming in hot, according to the hacker that is calling out to the Hellhounds’ captain and Gabriel’s own hacker that stands by his side.

Gabriel gets up to his feet, sighing as he rubs at his bloodied, bruised face with dirty hands.

He could leave the Hellhounds to their fate. But they had saved his ass, along with the team he had brought along. This had been a set up, doomed to fail and yet would be successful because of the Hellhounds that came to the rescue. Commander Gabriel Reyes knew what he would be doing, getting his ass chewed and called out would be something he would just have to deal with when he would get back to headquarters.

God, Jack is going to be relieved at first. But he would become pissed afterwards, when the others realize the potential danger and the newfound addition of the Hellhounds at headquarters. With that same thought, he actually found himself uncaring about that. The Hellhounds saved his operation, life and agents— he is going to thank them after everything settles down.

With the way it looked to him, maybe he would even convince them to join Blackwatch.

And so, Gabriel calls out to them to get onto the ship.

Everyone else had cleared into the dropship after the scientists. The hacker and healer twist their heads, hearing him and his demands. The hacker is smiling as she had always been, grinning like a little she-devil with that devil may care attitude. The healer actually stopped looking so miserable, to replace his solemn expression with surprise. As the two turn to one another, making the decision simultaneously, they call out to echo the same to the rest of the team.

The dropship is powering up for takeoff. It is now or never for the Hellhounds.

The hacker and healer are the first to come, as the berserker team covers their backs and the snipers are covering the three men. Gabriel offers his own hand to the cheerful hacker and the healer that returned to wielding his previous, miserable expression on his now scowling face. He began to reroute and plan the tactical retreat to the dropship for the rest of the team.

“Thanks for the lift, mister!”

The hacker has so much youth, the wide smile is bright as her hazel eyes takes to looking over to Gabriel’s hacker— as though she had a sixth sense for picking up on other hackers in her presence. From head to toe, she is dressed in a mixture of pitch black and vivid purples, and her own patch of a panther’s jaws is sewn over the right of her chest. The hacker is a refreshing sight.

She’s probably the youngest of the Hellhounds, if Gabriel could guess right on the spot.

The Hellhound healer is comfortable with standing just behind the lowered platform of the dropship, the disks around his wrists still lustrous in red, “Captain, you and the twins are cleared to get to the dropship with the lovers to cover you.”

Twins, of course, that cackling idiot and terrifying demolitionist were twins. Because why would they not be twins? But lovers? Did the tactical healer mean the snipers?

The healer-strategist is tapping at his tablet after he had retrieved it from his side bag, his icy blue eyes are sharp with same assessing of a methodical surgeon readying for a procedure. He flicks on an emitter field to help relieve pain and swelling for all those on the ship as Gabriel’s own medic is taking to look at the individual injuries of the rest of the Blackwatch agents. Gabriel swears that the emitter feels stronger and more efficient than the ones that both Overwatch and Blackwatch owns.

That miserable expression twists his aesthetically pleasant features, he’d be a real pretty sight with those oriental features of his. Gabriel could confirm with Genji on the man’s nationality. Ultimately, Gabriel decides that he should just stay as far away as possible from this one— the healer seemed fussy and overly controlling whenever someone is decidedly more accident-prone as his patient.

The snipers are practically flying over the building tops, but with the closed distance, Gabriel could tell them separately now. He can now see that one is taller than the other, the taller one had been the one to be more protective over the other. And he can now see that the shorter sniper with the blue scarf is actually a sniper with a head full of _blue_ _hair_.

The blue haired Hellhound is moving faster, she had most likely been ordered onto the dropship first as the taller sniper with the crimson scarf takes a position to cover the three manned-assault team. Her rifle is meant for accuracy and in short bursts while the taller sniper has a rifle meant for distance and power.

Gabriel’s enhanced sight can see the taller sniper is wearing some cover over the lower half of her face and had protective goggles atop of her head rather than over her eyes. Her fingernails had been painted blue and her patch of panther jaws is a bandana that is hanging around the right shoulder, underneath the length of her cerise scarf. And her dark, shadowed eyes have a fierce glint that starts a pulsing heat in his gut.

The blue haired sniper is still on the move, travelling and jumping over each roof fluidly, her sniper rifle scope has a bright twinkle and the crossbody bag hanging from her back is an extra weight that slightly slows her. She had her own pair of goggles that were over her eyes, a sparkle in the goggles indicating that she had some tech to help with her shooting.

The tall sniper is rapidly firing shots with brutal, terrifying accuracy— she is obviously the most experienced and battle weary of the two. She faces a barrage of enemy fire head on, bullets being aimed specifically at her, but she remains unmoved from her position. She did not even move to duck and just continued to fire deadly shots to cover for the captain and the two younger males.

The young hacker is encouraging both snipers, waving her arms in the air with imaginary pom-poms, “C’mon, you Czech goddess, move your butt faster! And that _Omisha_ really is terrifying, ain’t she? Man, I swear, she is always so scary when on the field!”

The blue haired sniper finally approaches the last roof which is closest to the dropship and, without hesitation, the short woman jumps off the last edge to land in a pile of a merchant’s clothes stand. The dust goes flying from the stacks of blankets due to the collection of dirt and summer heat. But the blue haired sniper is already back onto her feet and charging for the dropship before the dust settles.

“You made it, Karou!”

The hacker greets her enthusiastically as the blue haired woman steps onboard, her dark brown eyes have molten gold as they are revealed after pulling off her goggles and letting it fall onto the equally blue scarf wrapped around her neck. The Hellhound insignia is over her upper left arm. Her curious orbs flit over to Gabriel and nodding to him in appreciation as he greets her as well. She unslings her rifle and sets it down, seeming to know that the hacker wanted to give her a hug.

The sniper laughs as she is tackled by the hacker and hugs the younger female back. Before she nods to the healer, in confirmation of the rest of the team being ready to move to the dropship, she is greeting Gabriel with a soft accent that belongs to some European country. She takes a second glance to Gabriel, it lingers like a lover’s caress, and he is shivering when she is smiling at him before she settles down with the healer and hacker on the other side of the dropship.

“Quiet, the captain and the twins are closing in on the dropship— the mercenaries are still going on strong, do what you need to take care of the last of the sheep.”

The blue haired sniper frowns but says nothing at the cold calculations of the healer. Her hands nervously rub over one another in a worrying motion— displaying an unconscious habit gained a bit of sympathy from Gabriel. She seemed somewhat on edge, always taking glances to the taller sniper still on her own perch of the roof, covering the captain’s six.

The hacker is jumping up and down ecstatically as the younger males finally come onto the dropship as well. They are obviously twins, sharing a strong jawline, straight noses and high cheekbones and heads full of dark, brown-red hair. Even their heterochromatic eyes were the same, blues so light that it appears to be silver and browns light enough to appear as gold. The demolitionist has impressive tattooed hands on his carbine.

“One helluva of a way to be helping out people, dinnae think the captain would actually give us orders!” The loud mouth maniac has a wicked smirk and tattoos that twine up past his Henley sleeves, the chest plate over his front has stopped some close shots.

The hacker launches onto the demolition twin with her arms going around his neck, his expression fond as he wraps one arm gently around her as the other holds onto his equipment, carbine on his back. The two slip into an easy embrace that lasts for only a second, her murmurs expressing that she is glad he’s safe and he only patted her shoulder in reassurance. The hacker goes to hug the loud-mouthed twin who wields double Desert Eagles with sharp precision that contradicts his carefree attitude.

He is chuckling, low and deep, “Come on, Sun—”

The healer steps forth, interrupting the banter of his fellows, “Quiet, take out those cyborgs before the captain gets within their range!”

Gabriel observes as the remaining sniper on the roof quickly deposes two large cyborgs with a single bullet as a gift to each one. Two clean, perfect gifts in between the eyes. Now that is some skill, Ana would be impressed with the reaction time.

The captain nods his thanks, tearing through the straggling mercenaries before he too arrives upon the safety of the dropship. The dropship actually groans with his added weight. Gabriel swears that the captain’s added weight even has the dropship shifting to the side.

Quiet, the taller sniper with fatal accuracy, moves like a shadow in the smoke and jumps from her perch. Gabriel feels like he’s watching a dancer on a stage, distant and untouchable, he can distinctly hear the hacker going silent as everyone watches the sniper. She rolls once and moves for the dropship as the captain covers for her, killing the last of the hostile mercenaries.

But the reinforcements are closing in, according to the Hellhound’s healer, his tablet is lit up with the moving dots. The hacker is attempting to slow them with her holographic screens honing in on some of the cyborgs, but not all of them are firmly in her grasp with how she curses vehemently and typing faster and faster by the second.

The pilots are shouting now, warning that they are going to take off. The dropship is roaring from the boosters, the body vibrating and humming around the Hellhounds and the Blackwatch agents. Quiet’s long, long legs are swift in her smooth running— she quickens as if she had heard the pilots in the distance.

Gabriel yells back at them to wait another second. Quiet is just nearly ten paces away the dropship— before her captain is shouting, unintelligible phrases in another language that Gabriel has no clue as to what it is, as Quiet gets barreled into by a cyborg that moves faster than any should normally be able to. The reinforcements were deadly serious on stopping them.

She is forcibly taken into a wall, the damned thing actually cracked, the lightning-esque marks etched into the wall from how hard she landed along with the cyborg. Her rifle is dropped as she lashes out at the cyborg, blue fingernails in fingerless gloves draw blood from the cyborg’s face. Her lips pulled in a feral snarl as she spits and bares her teeth right at the cyborg. Gabriel distinctly sees that she _smiles_ right after— it sends a boiling heat up his spine.

A smile of fatal promises of extinction and controlled rage.

The sniper with the red scarf, blue painted fingernails and rogue smiles, is not trapped by the cyborg. The cyborg made the mistake of deciding to be close to her— the cyborg is dead and just did not know it yet. But it did not mean that she is not at a slight disadvantage with how large the cyborg is compared to her willowy, tall frame.

The blue haired sniper is gasping out, moving to leave the dropship and gets stopped By both of the Scottish twins, “Quiet!!!”

Gabriel shouts out too, shocking himself with the rise of emotion that explodes from his chest and up to his throat. All Blackwatch agents begin jumping to their feet and rearing to move out to aide the sniper. Gabriel did not even take a step off the dropship’s lowered platform before Quiet is unleashing hell on the cyborg.

What she does took even him by surprise. How she moves so fast is beyond him. And he knew, she is not one to back down from fulfilling her promises.

A wicked looking circle blade is swinging, singing in the air with the promise of death— she is always prepared for close quarters and she did not always fight fair. She nicked herself on her side from the little wiggle room she had been allowed by the cyborg unknowingly. It is just another small mistake that ensures that the cyborg is dead and not the other way around. The deliverance is swift and unforgiving, no mercy is given to her offending enemy and the moonblade is covered in red when it connects and passes through the cyborg’s neck.

A small splatter splashes in her face and she does not flinch. Again, Gabriel feels like he has been watching a dancer on a stage— so foreign, so distant and so unattainable.

The silence past the roaring of the dropship is deafening as Quiet lands on her feet, grabbing at her dropped rifle and sprints towards the dropship. The cyborg’s body hits the ground as she moves, dashing— practically flying, as a bat straight out of the depths of hell. The cyborg’s body is left beheaded and pooling an obscene amount of blood from the remnants of his body.

Her footfalls are silent even as it is rivaling against the beat of the dropship— something that should be impossible to Gabriel’s superior hearing gifted by the SEP chemicals that had been pumped into his body. No one can be that silent when in his presence— and yet, this sniper is a phantom in the wind.

The dropship lifts from the ground and takes off to the sky when the sniper finally jumps onto the closing platform of the dropship’s backdoor. The blood on her face, neck, chest and hands is a gruesome sight, crimson splashed upon the ivory of her skin is a sight. She is unnaturally pale unlike her golden blue-haired counterpart and she ended up standing right in front of Gabriel.

She is in front of him, unabashed from his assistance and adrenaline still pulsing through her veins like lightning, he can feel it in his own veins. She stands tall, so tall that she is just an inch away from reaching Gabriel’s own height. It appears to her and the rest of the Hellhounds that it is just another ordinary day of her life to be covered in the blood of her enemies. The heat in Gabriel’s gut increases, he becomes painfully aware of his pants being tighter than it previously been.

Her nearly black eyes are calm, despite being slick with still warm blood over the mask that covers her face from the tip of her nose and down. A small splattering of crimson had been painted just underneath her eyes, long eyelashes with a model’s curve. She is a serene dream to gaze upon and admire— she is a grand sight to behold.

He is still holding onto the tall sniper’s arm, having grabbed it when the dropship took off and the platform door had shut with a startling bang just behind her. Gabriel did not mind the blood, did not mind the dust and the dirt and the pieces of wall that clung to her back and shoulders. He thought that the woman standing in front of him is striking and ruthless and so goddamn beautiful. And _fuck_ , if Gabriel’s pants are any way of telling that he is attracted to her.

She made the mission worth the amount of shit that occurred with just standing with him, their arms entwined and fingers clasping upon each other’s forearms with bruising effect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omisha is a deity of death.


	3. The Pack, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the Hellhounds.

After having jumped onto the dropship, detaching herself from the man in the beanie, Quiet had pulled off her face cover and settled herself down to sit with Karou. The two ducked their heads and spoke in rapid tandem before they fell into silence and the comfort of each other’s presence.

The man in the beanie had the good sense to stick to his own people. How exactly could one explain what had been exchanged between the two of them who had unspent adrenaline and energy reserved for combat? People typically don’t have that excess amount— and that all on its own is an unsetting thing to think about.

When the dropship finally touched down to wherever, these people that the Hellhounds have helped, the change in the agents and the man in the beanie is noticeable. The man took on a countenance of a commanding officer, crossed arms and grousing voice. The agents are stiff and no longer speaking to the Hellhounds, despite how much they had interacted with on another to clear any awkward air between them.

What a waste.

“Now, this is quite the interesting predicament we have found ourselves in…” Fylkir voices out as the door opens.

When the door opens completely, it reveals the Hellhounds and the people they have aided to a whole host of people waiting for them on the landing platform. A brightly dressed man with a head of full blond hair dominates the rest of the crowd’s presence.

Sunya is muttering in her mother tongue, as she closes all of her holographic screens and shutting off her systems completely at the request of the man in the beanie. She did not look entirely too happy but she complied as Fylkir had asked when she clearly did not want to do as she had been requested. She pulls at the purple ends of her dyed hair, fidgeting in her spot and sticking close to the good doctor.

Sato is downright glaring at the snow on the distant mountains and the chilly air that hits them. His miserable expression had been a firm mask throughout the ride, especially when he had freely advised the only medic that had been flitting between everyone in the dropship. But that is just how he always is.

The good doctor cared for competence and ensuring the proper care for everyone. He had lessened the bruises around Quiet’s neck after the dropship had found safety in the skies, clucked his tongue in annoyance and reprimanded her for allowing herself to even have been caught up with so easily.

She had laughed at him, not noticing that the man in the beanie had nearly copied the rotation of an owl’s neck just to watch her laugh. Sato had the good sense to simply apply the emitter field to help lessen the pain and moved on to help with Fylkir’s more grievous wounds.

The Darrow twins bare their teeth when they had been asked to hand in their weapons. Calum’s Desert Eagles were his babies, nobody else could touch them. And anyone would have to be insane to think that they could just _ask_ for him to give them up. Conall did not entrust his explosives to be handled by others— he had his own techniques that could be detrimental to people who attempted to poke and prod where they should not.

The Hellhounds were ordered to lay down their weapons.

“You think you can just grab these from me? Over my dead—”

“Calum.”

Quiet’s voice is cutting, silencing the Scot berserker as she releases her own hold from her rifle. Ragnor is chuckling loudly, good-naturedly, just by her side as another handler struggles with the weight of his monster of a rifle.

She stares right into him and he glares right back, his eyes of gold and silver nearly just as terrifying as her dark ones. But it is obvious, he is a stubborn ass but not an insubordinate one— he could not risk the safety of the pack because he would not relinquish his possessions. And he certainly could not go up against Quiet, not in front of everybody like this.

The Darrows begrudgingly release their hold— Calum’s bag carefully handled and the Desert Eagles kept in their holsters. The man in the beanie nods appreciatively but Quiet studiously ignores him in the favor of making sure that Karou is handled appropriately.

Karou looks crestfallen and sighing out parting words to her weapons, she had a metal string that helped her in her own close quarter combat and a set of knives that resembled needles that could be used as chopsticks to put into her blue, blue hair. The one who takes them away seems heartbroken, in sync with Karou— they looked close to tears as they move to join with the other handlers who takes away the rest of the weapons.

Sato and Sunya hand in their sets together. Sato had chakrams, electronically attached to rings that he had connected to his sleeves, his tablet and his emitters. Sunya’s staff is electrically charged, it had multiple uses for both combat and suited for her hacking systems, her cufflinks that charge up her holographic screens and her earrings were made out of omnium metal of bright purple.

Quiet undoes her hair, after she gives up her moonblades and single _kodachi_ from a strap just underneath her shirt, she removes a similar pair of knives that acted as chopsticks for her hair. She ignores the stares and whispers when her handler undoubtedly talks about her height to the others. She does, however, stare back when the man in the beanie looks to her curiously. He looks away from her as he motions for the handlers to move on.

The Hellhounds stay in the back as the crowds slowly dissipate and the agents on the dropship along with the pilots also trickle out. The man in the beanie is the last to the leave the dropship, after the Hellhounds step off.

The man in the beanie closes in on the man in the bright blue overcoat, he breathes out, “Jack.”

The two men, one bright and the other dark, they stare. They stare some more before they both relent and close in on one another. The other two with them is a woman with sharp eyes that hones in on Quiet and Karou, a polite smile on her face. But Quiet can feel the storm just underneath the other woman’s skin— smiles that hide her lethality, quite a good mask for her.

The other man that stands with the woman, with the Egyptian mark under her left eye, is quick to look with far too friendly looks towards Karou. Quiet finds his cowboy hat a ridiculous thing to wear in this kind of setting. His belt also screamed of his eccentric American fashion. But it does not change her mind when a flash of something else lingers in his eyes. He had a good mask too.

Her dark eyes caught onto the two men as they hugged one another, clapping each other on the backs in the way that men like to greet one another. There is a heated look shared between them, their heads close as they lean into one another with their hushed conversation.

When the man in the beanie had spoken his name, the Hellhounds knew exactly where they were now. And knew who this bright, blonde man is.

Strike Commander Jack Morrison— the poster boy of Overwatch, the golden man with a plan— he is prettier in person. But the amount of emotion he has on his face now, he is more human in person as well. He must have an astute skill of being able to switch personalities, one suited for the public and the other as who he truly is— or maybe, he is just something of a man with his brain on his sleeve as well as his heart.

The way his shoulders lessen in tension, the relief clear in those deep, hypnotizing eyes and the way his body is naturally angled to be as close as publicly close to the man in the beanie— all clear signs of more than just friendship. He showed his true face to the man in the beanie. Morrison clearly trusted the Egyptian sniper, with the shining rank of captain on her uniform, and at best, tolerated the man in the cowboy hat. There is an insolent grin on his bearded face as he looked to Quiet with outwards attraction. She then realizes the cowboy is younger than he looked at first glance, probably as young as Sun but no older than the Darrows.

What a strange place full of people with various backgrounds.

Her mouth twitches, slightly. But nothing else leaves her and she allows the agent that offers the need to handcuff her— he had a mildly distressed voice, probably intimidated by her height, and that has Karou laughing lightly. Again, Quiet finds herself highly amused with the whole predicament of the Hellhounds now being treated as suspicious hostiles.

The others are also handcuffed but the significantly smaller agent with the Hellhound’s captain is a fucking trip to experience, beginning to end. Fylkir is bigger than life itself, he stood at seven feet and had fists the size of people’s heads. His face, though while softened with age and his personality, had scars that would undoubtedly spook others naturally.

This has the other Hellhounds chuckling between each other before they are carted off to their individual holding places. The Darrows bare their teeth but comply. The other agents are gentler with Sunya and it is Sato’s sharp icy blue eyes that keep them from being too pushy with both Sunya and himself. The agent with Karou is pale when they realize they were being stared down by Quiet— daring them to give her a reason as to why she should bare her own teeth with the compromised safety of her blue haired counterpart.

Quiet looks back to the man in the beanie. His scarred hand slightly hovering by the Strike Commander’s and she again finds herself entertained with this whole situation. Their faces no longer held the clear affection they still shared for each other— no longer watched by the Hellhounds as a gathered whole or the crowds of agents under either of these men.

How interesting; that the Strike Commander and this other _commander_ seemed to be in a relationship. But now with the realization of no more danger and the chance of loss, they seemed on edge with one another. They shared a look that promised a private conversation— another fight of words, another battle of combating wills.

They must have had some disagreement but Quiet had still latched on to that title of _commander_ attached to the man in the beanie. There is something that does not add up to the whole situation.

This mission of aiding him and his people had fascinating results but also a foreshadowing domino effect that would lead to disastrous events in the future.

\- ༺༒༻ -

Fylkir Ragnor, retired Commander of the Icelandic Coast Guard, a goddamn war _legend_ during the Omnic Crisis, just looked comical as he sat in the small chair of the interrogation room.

He made everything look miniature compared to him.

His past, pristine reputation as the Viking _Ragnarök_ against the omnics is not the only reason as to why there are no handcuffs on him— but he is just simply for too large for any handcuffs to keep him. The mountain of a man only laughed good-naturedly, complying to all demands made of him.

The Strike Commander himself decided to meet the captain of the Hellhounds, “Hello, Commander Ragnor.”

Fylkir’s bright green eyes and wide smile is warm, “Strike Commander Morrison, a pleasure to meet you. _Hvað skyldi ég skulda ánægju_?”

Morrison blinks slow, slight surprise at the sound of the older man’s rumbling voice and the use of his native tongue. When Fylkir notices the distress, he laughs— shoulder shaking and chest rumbling, hands slapping his thighs. The chair underneath him creaks under the stress of his weight, the walls vibrate with his resonating tones.

“Strike Commander, you should have learned the languages of the world with the way you are well known throughout. But no matter, I shall repeat, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Morrison relaxes, beginning his interrogation, “I only have a few questions, regarding you and your team, Commander Ragnor.”

Fylkir chuckles low, “Yes, yes, I am aware of how such things go. Please, begin with your questions.”

He only made one request with a wicked gleam in his eyes: do not antagonize his second in command while questioning them.

But he never told anyone who it was out of the other Hellhounds.

\- ༺༒༻ -

The hellraising twins of Skye, Scotland were part of what used to be a light role infantry division of the Royal Regiment that fought in the Omnic Crisis. They were soldiers at the ripe age of twenty-one when the war started.

Conall Alisdair Darrow, codenamed _Starburst_ , is deaf in one ear, colorblind in the opposite eye. The older twin has all of his fingers and limbs intact, considering his profession, and it is a testament to his handling of the skill. The man had an unsettling aura that put even Gabriel off balance. And it did not help that his mismatched eyes are so damn unsettling with how keenly he looks at everyone with a rather detached attitude.

Calum Artair Darrow, _Nighthawk_ , is unofficially a goddamn psychopath. But then again, when he was a thin hairline away from death and escaped from it out of pure _spite_ , all to return to his brother, well, no one would be considered normal after that. He antagonizes the hell out of Gabriel and has a knowing look in his eyes that disturbs him just as easily as simply staying in the same room as his twin brother.

Someone made a bet that someone would end up trying to punch Calum for his smartass quips. That someone got a smack upside the head. Fortunately, no one punched Calum.

\- ༺༒༻ -

Sunya Yang, the pup of the Hellhounds, is a renowned hacker with the toughest of firewalls known to date. She could type at one-hundred and fifty words per minute and that is before she has a single drop of coffee in her, all of this is much to the amusement of Captain Ana Amari.

After the omnics had desecrated the islands of Lao, she had disappeared for a time before reemerging to be part of the last push that ended the crisis, at the age of fifteen and under the codename of _Zion_.

And yes, Sunya had named her systems after her proclaimed hacker name. But only because she could not think of another name.

\- ༺༒༻ -

Karou is irrevocably the sweetheart of the pack, the epitome of being the diamond in the rough. The Czech civilian-turned-sniper is truly someone who seemed to have the gift of otherworldly magic as she is not timid nor shy, just simply soft-spoken. She had the tongue of a poet and the mirage of a temptress.

Her smile alone made people swoon, she is so wholesome and full of beatific wonder which makes her practically irresistible. But a soft click of her tongue would make the strongest of will scramble to regain their lost standing in her disapproving presence. A flat stare from her might as well be the death sentence and a guarantee of being in an early grave.

With this observation, it made Gabriel Reyes sweat at the thought of Karou Sekova and Amélie Lacroix ever crossing paths. God forbid, they could start a second crisis if they do not become fast friends. Gerard Lacroix had all but laughed wholeheartedly, his wife would most certainly enjoy a date with Karou. Ana only covered her mouth, to hide the wide smile of approval when she learned of how well practiced the Czech Hellhound is as a sniper.

\- ༺༒༻ -

The good doctor, Si Woo Sato, would be considered incredibly handsome bearing in mind of his mixed heritage. But only if he stopped looking like Achlys, the Greek goddess of misery and sadness, herself cursed him to a lifetime of permanently frowning.

His mother, a reputable Korean doctor, became known for improving the healing nanotechnology just at the start of the war. She had been married to an infamous Yakuza household, second in the ranks of clans across the continents of Asia. The rumors had been scandalous and criticism scathing. But there are always those individual, spread out whispers of the tender gazes from the lovely Ji Ah Sato and kind hands from the lionhearted Kai Sato.

But aside from his rich familial history, Si Woo could outdrink everyone with whiskey and not suffer from a hangover the next day. He also always, always hated the weather. It did not matter if it is a sunny day with a kind breeze or a flooding downpour, he hated being outside of a well air-conditioned space and considered the laboratory or medical wing as home.

His bedside manners are more of him being tolerant of his patients even being there. But he is full of information for self-care— no one dares to refuse his advice. Gabriel had been right to avoid being too close in range of the good doctor. One glance from the doctor and Sato had known that Gabriel had been favoring his left side. Gabriel was given a glare that looked ready to smite him for trying to be prideful and not show any pain. Sato ended up handing a handwritten prescription before he allowed himself to be questioned.

\- ༺༒༻ -

The last piece, the strange and unfitting part of the puzzle, is Quiet.

The silent as the grave, still as a statue sniper is the one who left the most impression of the inner circle. Ana had been over the roof with the small footage that Gabriel’s hacker had managed to record with Quiet’s performance on the field. And she could tell that Quiet had been the one to teach Karou Sekova on how to be a top-notch sniper. Genji Shimada had been rather impressed with the skill of parkour it took to take to traversing on rooftops of Morocco.

The masking cover over the lower part of her face is from the full, protective bodysuit she wears underneath other pieces of clothing or armor. It is a stretchy black material and acts as a turtleneck and extra layer when she is dressed casually.

Even without her hybrid sniper rifle, the wicked moonblades of oriental origins, and the small needle knives used as chopsticks to hold her hair up, she is still capable of taking down every single person in her path.

It was as evidenced by having flipped and thrown a fully grown nearly three-hundred-pound man to the ground and choked him unconscious underneath her foot to his throat. Karkorov, a Russian Overwatch agent, had vulgarly groped her backside and she had done him the courtesy of keeping his life but retaking her dignity with a dead eyed stare directed at Jack Morrison. That look alone made the blond man feel chastised and fully embarrassed of the actions of his agent.

Karkorov would find himself with a new assignment in Antartica, so long as Quiet would not deign to take his life later on. Gabriel held no pity for the agent. Ana only smiled. Jack was still blushing by the time he left to take care of that process.

She is a lounging wildcat, the stillness in the air is eerie and her dark, dark eyes are nearly black voids that seem to suck out the color and light out of everything around her. While she is not unkind or outright violent, she is politely distant and obviously secretive regarding herself.

The questions about the orders given by Captain Ragnor, for the Hellhounds to provide assistance on the botched mission, are straightforward. The sniper answers smoothly but vaguely. Gabriel had been kept out of interrogating her as he had been far too close to her— he is a practical man, but even he is moved by the grand gesture of his people and himself having been looked after by her. He would have been too soft on her to get the answers they needed.

When Gerard Lacroix begins his arsenical, sweet and poisonous approach about herself, the lounging wildcat has her claws out. But her fangs remain unbared.

“So, Quiet is your callsign, correct, _mon cher_?” Gerard with his ridiculously suave smile seemed like he already knew the answers.

For some unknown reason, neither Blackwatch or Overwatch resources could find any information of Quiet. She is a ghost of the system, a phantom in the wind and something of a crow that evaded the rest of the squabble. But Gerard is a spy, information like this is something he can acquire through his own connections. He simply burned the pathways to keep from others peeking at the treasure of knowledge when he was done with it and gathered what he needed to understand the anomaly before him.

Gabriel observes on the other side of the interrogation room behind the one way window.

His arms are crossed and is feeling impatient with the way Gerard plays cat and mouse with those he interrogates. But the sniper sitting across from Gerard has his focused attention, she had it since she decapitated a cyborg three times her own size and did not take a second glance after she left some blood on him from when they had grasped forearms.

Quiet slowly tilts her head, without those needle chopsticks it leaves her unbound hair to fall in rippling waves falling from her shoulders and past her waist. Outlandishly enough, the ends of her hair have a smooth ombre from dark brown to golden brown with tints of red— the thick length of her hair beats Ana’s.

That is a fleeting thought in Gabriel’s mind and it is inappropriate to think about that, especially when he wants to know if it is as soft as it looks.

Quiet murmurs, “Not a callsign, _omul umbrelor_.”

Gerard perks up at the accent and the name she calls him. And in doing so, Gabriel does as well as he is grabbing at his tablet to find the translation. He snorts as Gerard comments upon it, sounding somewhat miffed but still all too amused with Quiet. Well, _man of shadows_ is certainly a good way to describe Gerard’s career.

Romanian. There are not many of them anymore, they were one of the many regions and countries that had been nearly destroyed, not quite like the utter annihilation of Australia but damn near close enough to extinction. All that was left there is the mountains and the dense, black forests along with the Black Sea. The people of Romania became known as the Carpathians, they had renamed themselves after the war ended and later merged with the Russians.

The Carpathians had history, ancient and revered with both past and present times.

“Tell me a story, _Carpates_. I hear that your people gained a bit of reputation for becoming mercenaries and highly contracted killers. There are even rumors of non-humans and the like.”

And it made sense as to why Gerard Lacroix is now looking into the jaws of a beast born of the night in those dark, dark eyes of Quiet.

There is a static in the air, the room falls still and silent, and Quiet is leaning forward now after she straightens her posture. With her back straight as a metal pole and shoulders thrown back as if readying for a battle and that flat stare from her voidless eyes sucks out what soul is left in the interrogation room. A vicious bloodlust slowly sinks its claws and brings up dread in Gerard.

There is a blankness in Quiet’s face.

She has withdrawn into herself. The sniper is aware of what is happening but to the outside eye, she is unreadable. Nothing passes from her eyes for Gerard to be able to judge her, not even a finger twitches as she stares Gerard down.

And then, she smiles leisurely.

Both Gabriel Reyes and Gerard Lacroix understand why her name is simply _Quiet_.

They did not need to know her, they would never know her— but they should acknowledge that she is what she is. A surviving Romanian, a reborn Carpathian, is all that is needed to be known of her. For now.

“I am no longer a _mercenar_. The _comandutal_ , Fylkir, must have told you all you need. But do tell, _chichiţă mâncător_ , what would you like to hear from me? _Nu am secrete_.”

Gabriel furrowed his brow as Gerard continues on his questioning.

Everyone has secrets. How could she not have them?

When Gerard seems to be unable to pry any more useful information from her, he ends the interrogation. The man smiles pleasantly and Quiet returns to her lounging. The claws retracted and the fangs remain unrevealed. She is drawn back within herself once more as Gerard picks up his papers from the steel table that separates him from Quiet.

Before Gerard can leave the interrogation room, ready to retire to his lovely wife, Quiet drawls out, “Are the rest of the Hellhounds cleared? They are unharmed?”

“Yes, _Carpates_ ,” Gerard seems perplexed, not quite expecting her to ask of something from him, “why ask me?”

Something gives in Quiet, a softness in her that calls out to Gabriel, “Because I cannot bear for her to be hurt.”

Gerard raises an eyebrow with curiosity, “Who?”

Quiet’s dark eyes trail from Gerard and straight at Gabriel, as though she can see right through the glass to him, and gives small raise of her elegant jaw aimed to him, “ _He_ knows of who I speak of, _omul umbrelor_.”

Gerard Lacroix has never been taken by surprise, the disbelief makes his eyes widen. And Quiet remains unmoved, just as languorous in posture when the interrogation first began. The softness in her gone, a momentary lapse that she only allowed to shine and turned it as a petty way to sucker punch both men unexpectedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French  
> mon cher - my dear  
> Carpates - Carpathian
> 
> Romanian  
> omul umbrelor - man of shadows or shadow man  
> mercenar - mercenary  
> commandutal - commander  
> chichiţă mâncător - secret eater  
> nu am secrete - I have no secrets


	4. The Pack, Part 2

Her _kodachi_ is a comfort strapped across her lower back, hidden away underneath her sweater and still easily accessible just under the band of her sweatpants. The agent and master spy, Gerard Lacroix, allowed the _kodachi_ back to her as the Hellhounds have been fully cleared from any malicious intent against Overwatch, or, more namely the secreted black ops division, Blackwatch.

She did not quite like the way he had smiled at her, sharp eyes that were picking her apart but with a suave smile on the Frenchman’s face that he knew could sway even her. She did not trust him. But she would appreciate the gesture of him giving one of the many defense weapons she owned. They have yet to return her needle knives— they were smart too, she supposed.

Quiet preferred her moonblades at her hips but this is no battlefield. This is no mission or contract that would require them and so she keeps the feeling of being unbalanced at the back of her mind. She buries her uncertainty and worries down even deeper.

Quiet allowed the rather bizarrely _young_ blonde doctor to look at her neck after she had been instructed to when her interrogation had been completed. Quiet had blinked incredulously when the doctor introduced herself, clad in a lab coat and the Overwatch symbol on the white sleeve. Those blue eyes of the Swiss doctor held a gleam that reminded Quiet of Sunya’s youth.

Sato is not even as young as her and he is the second youngest in the Hellhounds, just a few years older than Sun. Quiet had been surprised that someone so young is even a doctor in the first place. But the doctor is knowledgeable, giving her the same self-care tips that Sato would, so Quiet decides to trust this Angela Ziegler.

The woman had two MD titles to her name. Who even needed two of those?

“If you are having any troubles breathing, please come for me to check up on you. But I believe you are fine with an emitter when you sleep tonight,” the doctor’s accent is light as she speaks.

Quiet tilts her head, mind still reeling in incredulity, but she is regarding the blonde with a smile, “I shall endeavor to do so, if the need arises. I thank you, ma’am.”

The doctor blushes at the well-spoken patient before her, placing her hand on Quiet’s forearm and continues on speaking of how she should drink plenty of fluids and watch how she exerts herself for the next couple of days. It is only the calming temperament of the doctor that does not have Quiet jumping away from her. Most people do not touch the Romanian so openly but considering that is how she prefers it— she is just simply surprised by the doctor’s actions.

“Please, just Angela. Also, I heard from ze rest of your team zat your captain is to be in a meeting with the commander. You have been asked to go there as well.”

Quiet nods, carefully moving away from the blonde’s hand, “I appreciate it, Angela.”

The doctor takes up the tablet, bidding Quiet a farewell and smile. She is looking over the information of Quiet’s lab results as the sniper exits from the room. The doctor must have thought her strange— or was that projection when Angela looked back up to follow Quiet out of the room with a look of concern?

But Quiet takes to swiftly venturing out of the medical wing of the building and towards the Blackwatch section of the base. No matter how many times she has been forced to be in medical facilities, she still hated them all the same. A small ache in between her eyes spikes at the surfacing thoughts.

She takes a small liberty of looking at the signs and directions of each intertwining hallway and what leads to where. Blackwatch agents takes in the matching logos of her loaned clothes to their own but still steer clear from her. They all knew that she is not one of them. And they know to keep their mouths shut. Overwatch officers and cadets are weary and whisper behind hands whenever she leaves what they believe is her hearing range. She still hears them, uncaring of their scrutiny and continues on her own path.

Quiet eventually finds a plaque reading Blackwatch Commander Gabriel Reyes. Her attention shifts when she hears someone call for her. Her captain is lumbering forth, the bruises and cuts no longer make him look brutalized as he initially did before getting onto the dropship. The combined efforts of Sato and Angela appeared to have taken good care of Fylkir.

She and him had a well-rounded relationship of having each other’s backs and it did not hurt that they saved one another countless times in the past, both before and after becoming part of the Hellhounds. This is the reason as to why she had been appointed as his second in command, despite her protests. But it is because she refused to take on the _captain_ position in the first place as well.

“Captain, good to see you in one piece.”

The man bellows out in his wonderfully deep laughter, clapping his large hands together, “Quiet, ever so formal. You never need to call me such titles, _kæru_.”

“We are here, the _burta fiarei_ , captain… They do not trust us, I would not, and we are to see what shall become of us.”

The kind expression of his face hardens slightly before he simply transitions back to being the smiling individual he has always displayed himself. Sometimes, he looked every inch the commander he once had been in the past. But those times have been over a long time ago. The Omnic Crisis and the war left its mark on everyone, including Fylkir.

The Romanian gently pats his arm, his large hand gently squeezing hers in reassurance, “ _Trebuie să fim vigilenți_.”

Quiet stands by the Icelander, the man who is of Nordic descent and had a mixed lineage of German and Celtic blood, she always valued his easygoing nature just as he is accepting of her hardened personality. He is the warmth of flame to her tempered steel, they both balanced one another to a steadfast equilibrium and filled in the gaps of their weaknesses as well as leveraging their strengths to optimum peaks. They were equals, they were partners, they were soulbound and they found one another in the unlikeliest of places.

“Well, my _mo anam cara_ , shall we begin this meeting with the Blackwatch Commander?”

Quiet laughs as Fylkir wiggles his eyebrows, a cheeky smile on the elder’s face. It had always been in his nature to find ways to make her smile as often as he could. He always succeeded.

She shakes her head, gripping her forearms and loosening her shoulders from the tension, “Might as well, _dragi prieten_.”

Despite the lifelong practiced control over his strength, his knocks are like booming explosions on the door of the commander’s door. They wait for a few moments, both picking up on the footfalls of metal boots and the door opens to reveal the infamous Blackwatch Commander.

Quiet blinks once when she is greeted with the intimidating scowl of the man whom she had clasped hands with on the dropship. The handsome man who she rivaled in with her own height close to his own, the battleworn soldier who had protected his own people zealously. She had been so close to him with adrenaline and wildness in her veins and the need to find another battle to unleash the last of her energy— she takes in a breath in her surprise. She should not think of such things.

Her first thought of the Commander of Blackwatch, Gabriel Reyes, was that he is a powerful man. His broad shoulders, still clothed in a hoodie, filled in the doorframe of his office and those thick, muscled thighs that stretched his cargo pants and fit well like religion. His hands had been prone to snap the necks of his enemies with ease. His posture spoke of him as nothing but legion and authority.

And Quiet did not disbelieve that the man, who had similar bruises to the ones around her own neck, is someone at the top of the chain of command. He is a man of action, not to be bound by rules and forced under the tedious work of paper pushing and ass kissing. He looked more in his element when he had been on the streets fighting off the enemies from his people. He looked as such when he had been in the dropship and holding tightly onto her arm— when he had been looking deeply into her as though his very soul had found what he had been searching for on the field.

But then again, what would she know?

All she can see and pick up on is that the man is clearly stressed by being in this suffocating office, surrounded by nothing but paperwork. But something had to give, he had to trade something in to be a part of something like Overwatch and Blackwatch. And if the rumors had been correct, Reyes had lost the position of Overwatch’s first Strike Commander to his second in command, his fellow soldier and companion, Jack Morrison.

He got Blackwatch as a consolation prize.

Quiet frowns, at the fleeting thought of how something like that could happen but only to begin to follow after her captain. Never mind the fact that they were obviously lovers— something Quiet had witnessed before the Hellhounds had been taken into custody for questioning. As she takes her seat, when the elder offers her to sit first, her half-formed questions vanish rather swiftly.

It is his life and whatever occurred before should not be of her concern.

The commander moves around to sit on his desk chair, metal boots giving him away with his heavy footfall. The look he had burned, _seared_ , right into her back on the dropship, is gone and replaced by stress lines that had not been there before. But he still looked every inch the commander instead of the soldier. He sits down and sighs, collecting his thoughts.

He looks significantly older, _lonesome_ , compared to when he had been bumping fists with his agents and laughing deeply when the twins and hacker made jokes to make fun during the ride back to base. All of that had been to ease the tensions of suspicion between him and the Hellhounds, it had been for him and his agents when they were in such close proximity of one another, back when that the mission had been completed but still interrupted by outsiders separate of Blackwatch.

This office is doing him no good. And that is all she should think of on that matter, not on how much his shoulders slump and face becoming dark and contemplative as he takes to leaning back in his desk chair. She finds him attractive; it is not hard to simply appreciate it.

“Commander Ragnor,” Gabriel is interrupted by the elder’s interjection to just simply call him Fylkir.

His mouth twitches slightly and smiles at Quiet like it becomes an inside joke between the two of them, “ _Fylkir_ , I appreciate you coming in short notice. I wish to discuss on having the Hellhounds join Blackwatch. Your team is well trained, what happened today impressed me despite the circumstances, and I would want to have such competent individuals in Blackwatch with me.”

Straightforward, blunt— she could not ignore the way that Commander Reyes’ eyes not only looked for any indication of acceptance from Fylkir, but also her. He found value in her, it seemed. He is clever enough to know that she too garnered respect when in regard of the Hellhounds. And that makes her like him just as much as she could tolerate the idea of the Hellhounds being part of the black ops division that acts as Overwatch’s shadow.

But it does not quite fit in with her expectations as she had been imagining something more along the lines of imprisonment or some sort of probationary stage of time. The possibility of being released from both Overwatch and Blackwatch— with so many damning papers that would promise either execution or being publicly buried— should the Hellhounds release any information on _Blackwatch_. Or just simply being taken out to their early graves at the back of this base.

She would have preferred that than this.

She had said that they needed to be vigilant, that there is no way someone like Commander Reyes would so easily trust strangers, much less _vigilantes_. Quiet catches Reyes’ gaze, she stares right back at him before he looks back to her captain. She tries to get a reading of him and his true motives. Or did he truly expect to have the Hellhounds join Blackwatch as its newest asset?

There is a slight tinge of color to his skin, a bit of perspiration on his face, and she realizes that he must have been the same as her. The both of them are victim to the need to release the unspent, relentless energy reserved for battle— he must have been in the gym recently in the time of her interrogation and coming back to his office to meet with her captain.

She tilts her head in agreement with her captain’s next words, “Unfortunately, commander, I hold no authority over them. The Hellhounds are no true military group, we are simply a group that stuck to each other after the war ended. We found helping those suffering and in need as a calling.”

Reyes looks somewhat surprised, brown eyes moving to look to Quiet. She does not offer him anything with her passive expression and crossed arms. The man is searching for something, realizing that he would not find it with her, he turns back to the elder. Quiet somewhat feels bad but brushes it away, finding her thoughts on the others of the team.

“I see…”

Fylkir offers an apologetic smile, “Ask them, if you so wish for them to join you here, Commander Reyes. But I am feeling sure that the Hellhounds shall be glad to join you.”

The man looks a little surprised.

Quiet is more shocked, startled even, and she breathily whispers, “ _Ce_?”

The Icelander looks to her, there is wicked gleam in his green eyes, “Ah, my _mo_ _anam_ _cara_ , is finally speaking, eh?”

She immediately frowns, squeezing her biceps and looks away from the elder.

Commander Reyes seems somewhat just as startled by her outburst, a smile slowly curving up with the corners of his sensual mouth. Quiet does not look to him either. Her dark, dark eyes aimed only on Fylkir’s hands, they too had similar scars to her own— scars earned during the war.

They typically keep the intimacy of their friendship between themselves. She does not speak of her soulbound too freely as he does.

“I follow Karou. You know this, captain.”

The gleam in Fylkir’s evergreen orbs only intensifies when he notices the lingering looks from the commander to Quiet. Reyes looks away rather quickly, his skin flushes slightly more.

“Then I am sure _Wildflower_ would like to give the commander her answer soon, _mo_ _anam_ _cara_.”

Quiet sighs lowly, “Maybe, captain.”

Reyes dismisses them. Though while Quiet is disturbed, with such new circumstances, it assuages her to see the man look somewhat lightened up with her captain’s suggestive answer.

\- ༺༒༻ -

The Hellhounds gathered in the kitchen after lights out. Blackwatch has no curfew, but the Hellhounds are hesitant on wanting to converge in places where they could be seen or eavesdropped upon. Because, if there is one thing that the Hellhounds have learned within the first day of being here in Blackwatch— there are no secrets between those of Blackwatch.

Everyone knows everyone’s business; they just do not talk about it unless it is behind closed doors.

After the twins finally enter the kitchen, closing the doors but not locking them, all the Hellhounds had gathered completely. The two of them sit as Quiet begins to cook something simple for them, she takes out eggs and cheese from the fridge.

Calum is uncharacteristically speechless. Conall only frowns, deep in his thoughts.

Quiet breaks the eggs, fills a bowl of a regular batch and separates the yokes for Sato as he preferred whites only. Sun is rocking back and forth on her chair, whipping the regular bowl of eggs to help Quiet in the cooking efforts. Karou brings out a mixture of vegetables and cuts them with relative ease.

Fylkir only closes his eyes, serene in his peace as he is surrounded by the companions he has collected and the pack he established from the ground up. Sato is as miserable looking as ever. The doctor is ever constant and consistent as he is looking over his medical notes and strategies and the backups _to_ his backups for every formation and escape routes.

But Quiet is only paying attention to Karou after she finishes with the vegetables. The blue haired Czech seems contemplative, with furrowed eyebrows, a finger underneath her sensual mouth and her thumb curved under her chin. The constellation of freckles across her face is a fascinating sight to Quiet, she always recounted them when she would not be able to sleep during the night.

Twenty-five. Before the Hellhounds, it used to be twenty, the sun had been the cause of the new additions. Not that Quiet ever minded. She loved each and every freckle. Whenever Karou would scrunch her nose, furrow her brows or stick her tongue out at whoever offended her, the freckles followed and Quiet is always fascinated with every expression.

Sato’s cheesy, white egg omelet is the first to come out. Quiet begins to cook the regular omelets after Sun hands over the whisked bowl of fluffed eggs. The comfort food is meant to put the others to ease, it is the only way Quiet knows that works— only Fylkir and herself fully cooks for the group. They were the alphas of the pack and truly the parents to the pups.

Karou bakes, she is a treasure trove of sweets and delightful deserts. Sun and Sato find recipes and acquire the more rarer ingredients when they are required. The twins would roast or grill the meats whenever they would find themselves away on vacations from missions.

Calum shifts in his seat, speaking aloud and not to just one person, “Are we joining?”

And so, it begins.

Sunya is frowning, her knee shaking up and down rather vicariously— she’s young, she had her whole life ahead of her. She should be in college, getting some sort of degree for computer science or whatever it is that people with her skillset could bring about. She is the youngest, the pup, the baby and should have never joined in on the war.

She had joined up because she no longer had blood relatives to go to when the islands went up in destructive flame. She had shacked up with some other hackers in London and had been shipped off to China to assist in cyber security. All that traveling and searching and fighting to only crash-land into the Hellhounds after the war had been ended.

She is agile, light on her feet, could kick anyone’s ass even if they were twice her petite size, she weighed just above a hundred pounds when soaking wet.

Someone her age should be worrying about love interests and grades in academics. She should not burden herself with how to create another firewall to best her previous one or endure the stress of making sure the pack had the best shields to protect their six. And yet, she kept hanging, she stuck to them all.

Sun loved the pack.

Sunya followed after The _Ragnarök_ , scourge of the omnics and protector of humanity, with hero worship when they had first met. Not that the elder complained, he could never find it in himself to say _no_ to her of all people. The little Lao orphan called him grandpa and always gave the best backrubs for his aches.

The once defenseless, diminutive hacker picked up all the tricks on how to fight dirty from Calum, learned how to throw other people’s weight to her advantage and to be able to kick ass with a variety of weapons from pistols to rifles and blades. The infatuated hacker learned how to deactivate bombs by implementing Conall’s techniques, because he is so damn good at his bombs, and integrated them to her hacking system. Those updates saved so much time and so many lives in Kandahar on an incident of an almost suicide bomber.

Karou taught Sun how to smile pretty and extract information, she knows how to paint the picture of a victim helpless under the power of her captors but also how to turn the tables over just as easily. Even with the times of becoming more accepting of non-heteronormative relationships, not that it mattered to the pack, but Karou had taught her that love is beautiful in all forms. Sun has been taught to be kind in such a cruel, bitter world.

Sun found friendship and platonic affection for Si Woo. The doctor taught her nerve pinches and paralyzing jabs because he understood that she would never be able to kill. Protection is her specialty.

She would never speak of the soulfulness of Quiet. She would never reveal the hidden fears that Quiet spoke of to quell her developing fears and rid her of her own nightmares. Quiet named her _floare mică_ , small flower, and that is a gift all on its own. And that while Sun had been taught to be kind, she also had learned that certain times would call for bitter pettiness.

She is the heart of the pack, the young pup from the islands of Laos, the youth reminded them that they were still human. She reminded them, that even though they killed to protect the defenseless, to shield those who would fight by their sides as makeshift allies, and give no mercy to those who stands against them. She reminded them all that they are still of flesh and bone and of the earth.

Sunya Yang loved her family. She is here to stay.

She sees the Darrow twins take one look to one another.

They have been called the demon twins, rumors spoke of how they were truly the sons of the devil. It is said that they had brimstone for skin and hellfire for blood. It is thought that they were the princes of hell that had been unleashed upon the world to only wreak havoc and rain down destruction. They were forces of storm and fire, lightning and thunder, whipping air and raging water, tempered steel and wrought gold.

They joined up because they were told it was the right thing to do. They fought for their lives against the omnics because that was all they were told that they could and _should_ do. The Royal Regiment had a secret black ops division— like all the other countries did— and eventually, the Secret Services sucked the twins in on the honeyed lies of the both of them full of potential and spat them back out when they had been all used up.

Calum used to be one of the best when it came to interrogations. He had ways to sweetly coax out the truth. When things did not turn the way the higher ups wanted, he had the cruelty to brutalize and maim those who resisted. But something in him is still kind, for he does not allow those he had come across to suffer— he always ended those he tortured, no matter if the higher ups demanded to keep them alive.

Conall used to be one who experimented on superior techniques to make every explosion more supreme, practically righteous in judgement of who lived and who died. But in the S.S., Conall had been one of the most ruthless, emotionless international spies known in the underground. His name had once been well known, revered with both fear and respect.

But when one twin nearly died on the battlefield and the other had dreaded the consequences of the loss— they left everything behind when the war had been finished. They left the world behind to seek out their peace. They stumbled through endless circles, drank pubs dry and left for the next in the same hour, they fucked their way in the beds of many others and reveled with the share of their conquests.

They traveled all corners of the world, unstoppable and were absolute hellions in their own right. Until they found themselves stopping at the sight of a stalwart group that consisted of a washed up war legend, a notorious hacker dressed so brightly and a doctor with a face that seemed permanently stuck to appear only miserable till the ends of his days.

They had ended up in the desolate villages in the tropical forests of the Amazon were suffering from the disaster falling upon their only water source. The river had been poisoned with waste that originated from an industrial factory nearby.

The twins assisted a pair of snipers later on, with assassinating the leader in charge of managing the facility. They thought it ridiculous that a sniper chose to have their hair dyed _blue_ , of all colors. They did not find it ridiculous after they perceived that the devil truly existed.

The devil, the Morningstar, had been in the form of a wolf in the dark, dark eyes of the second sniper who dared them to speak their opinions. They certainly did not when they had been flattened singlehandedly into the muddy floor of the forest when they thought it had been a good idea to try to ambush the snipers.

They had been surprised by the ingenious of the young hacker building emitters that acted as filters and the miserable face of the healer of the group had saved every life with the dedication of curing them of the river poisoning. The war legend who had once been a part of the Nordic Vikings, a brotherhood to the German Crusaders, built secure foundations and allowed the village children to climb upon him as it he was meant as a living, breathing playground.

The twins prided themselves in helping alongside the vigilantes so readily. They found their peace. If they are to join Blackwatch alongside as part of the Hellhounds, then so be it.

Everyone has their omelets now. Quiet sits by Sato, a solemn nod is all she offers to him.

A child of privilege, born of a powerfully mixed lineage, Si Woo never thought that he would ever find meaning to his life. He grew under the strict, unrelenting expectations of those around him, of the government and the public. They all were throwing the hard work of his loving parents back in their faces as a spiteful _fuck you_.

They worked themselves twice as hard to give him the freedom that he should have had in the beginning. But he too had been forced into the spotlight, he had been primed to be in a gilded cage to serve underneath others in this cruel, bitter world.

Ji Ah had been stricken from the records of her own family, they had vehemently despised that she had married for love, they were all too envious that she found it, at all, as well. Kai had been estranged but remained untouched from the influence of the rest of his family. But the couple had raised their son well. They forged the pathway, giving him the choice to take it as he desired.

And he took it with both of his hands and held onto it like hell would freeze over if he ever let go.

He found the meaning of his life in the riot of events that included an almost successful assassination of his parents _and_ himself. Every sharp angle, every blocking wall, standstill point and unknown turns, lead to the moment of him meeting a pair of snipers. One had been blue haired while the other had leonine eyes that spoke volumes of the mysteries of the world.

After the explosion of a company building, a bloody excursion of singing blades and flying sniper rifle bullets, the escorting of his parents to safety and holding the defense until help could arrive— he decided to become the best damn strategist and healer of his generation. He found nascent friendships to last him a lifetime as he found his own budding importance and defiant will to face the rest of the world head on.

He found his place in the world with a vivaciously bright hacker by his side, twins of supposedly demonic origins as friends, a legendary Icelandic guardian, and two terrifyingly beautiful and overprotective snipers as pseudo-siblings. He found the home and family that gave him meaning. He would not trade it for anything in this world.

He can fuss over them all, sass them with a razor-sharp tongue and cluck his tongue at them like a mother hen. His advice and his services are all for them.

He is prideful, remorseless and shameless, for he turned his nose up to the world and say _fuck you very much_ — he would do what he wanted and not follow the way of others. He is not a prize to be coddled, he was never meant to be groomed and expected to yield or bow underneath any other. He is a Sato, the son of the iron-willed father and steel-spined mother.

He is the doctor of the Hellhounds, forever and until the ends of his days.

It is not every day that people get to meet one of the notorious Vikings, they had disbanded after the criticism had been aimed at both the Crusaders and Vikings. Fylkir Ragnor should have died just upon the dawn of the war ending, he had been ready to find his salvation and absolution alongside his fellows, with what was left of the remaining Vikings and Crusaders.

Somewhere, someone had decided that should end with a sniper’s bullet to his head. He had been worn down, fighting the battles and protecting the innocent, leading others to either predicted victory or unaccounted for death. He was ready to lay down his sword and shield. But the killing blow never came, because another sniper had saved his life.

For someone to truly understand the story of Fylkir Ragnor, they too must understand the story of Karou Sekova and Quiet. And only then would they comprehend the story of fate that brought the three together. It is a story of a condemned mercenary, a kind civilian and a worn-down war legend in the midst of blood and bullets, hammers and swords, assassins and warriors.

But to let onlookers who so ravenously wish to know, the story ends with the three forming the Hellhounds’ legacy.

Quiet does not move when a head full of blue hair finds home in the crook of her neck.

The pack finishes off their comfort food and the silence is all it takes for the entire pack to realize that, yes, the Hellhounds will join Blackwatch. Because whether or not the world knew it, another war was brewing on the horizon. The air is full of static and the people are on edge, tense with waiting for the next wave of bombs to be dropped.

The Darrows’ smiles are maniacal promises of nothing ever being boring and bland and too domestic. The doctor and hacker are leaning on one another in contentment as they both pat their hands on the looming shoulders of a retired commander.

Quiet looks down with half lidded eyes and sighs as Karou laces her fingers with her own. They smile to one another, tender and intimate, and Karou lightly nuzzles the tip of her nose at Quiet’s jawline. Quiet rubs at the ring on Karou’s right finger, something possessive that is buried deep in her purrs at the sight of the ring.

She is wild and free, so wonderfully chaotic yet instrumentally good. This woman had been the one who had _taught_ her how to heal, when the rest of the world only _told_ her to. She fills Quiet’s heart with words that she never knew could exist— they are of another language that only can be spoken with the beat of her heart and her soul and everything else that uniquely shapes her. She is alive, she stopped just existing and began _living_ when Karou found her.

The brighter the light, the stronger the shadow.

Wildflower is Karou’s callsign. A gift by Quiet, a claim on Karou full of wish and hope. It was during a time in the dark when confessions had finally been spoken and hearts becoming combined into one. It was during that time that Karou had been called _Wildflower_ with a breathless voice and gentle, scarred hands carefully holding onto her.

She had such a heart, blessed with the strength to rise after being trampled upon, consecrated with the will to weather the worst of summer storms, hallowed to grow and flourish in the most desolate, broken places. Such a heart that is capable of enchanting the one who only had one name that was not truly their name.

Karou never knew that she could love so fiercely. She never thought she would come to see what is behind the wolf in dark, dark eyes, to find the ashes of a dying fire, to know the secrets and welcome the unknown ghosts that already have a thousand stories and a thousand truths woven into Quiet’s very soul.

She never thought she would be the one to inspire the wildness and mystery of Quiet.

And she never thought that she would be the one to break her too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell that I like writing about my own characters?
> 
> Icelandic  
> kæru - dear
> 
> Romanian  
> burta fiarei - belly of the beast  
> Trebuie să fim vigilenți - we must remain vigilant  
> dragi prieten - dear friend  
> ce - what
> 
> Irish/Celtic  
> mo anam cara - basically equates to soul mate or soul friend


	5. Initiation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the first arc in the storyline. Can anyone guess how the arc ends?

Everyone had their own distinction when it comes to waking up at the ass crack of dawn.

Commander Reyes watches as all the hard cases and the newly recruited Blackwatch cadets merge completely with one another as they gather in front of him in the gym area. The hard cases were those he personally vouched for to give a second chance. The recruited ones came in with recommendations from their previous employ of being in Overwatch. The Hellhounds were in the back as they were neither recruits or the hard cases that consisted of absolved criminals and mercenaries.

But still, they were vigilantes that remained outside of Blackwatch jurisdiction.

He is in his black beanie, trademark hoodie, and metal boots, brows lowered and overshadowing his already dark eyes. He looked like he rolled out of bed last minute and is already on the edge to kill someone with just breathing in his general direction. His low, grousing tones indicates a bad mood rather than just being a recently awakened bear.

Something must have happened to make him look downright murderous. And it did not have to do with the fact that he wakes up earlier than anyone else known to man. But it is just as likely that he had not even slept the night before.

The hard cases were twitching in masked, nervous energy. The cadets were watching with wide eyes. And the commander of Blackwatch was not making it any easier to quell any curiosity and the hint of fear running rampart in the gym.

Fylkir Ragnor is proud and energetic, considering his age, bright smile stretching his scars considerably and reveling in the wee hours before the dawn. He picks up a chair and settles on it against the wall, crossing his bulging arms over his chest. He watches with rapture as Commander Reyes begins to introduce himself and explains the training regimen that will be toughening everyone in the room.

Most of them, hard cases and the recruits, had military training of some sort. But Commander Reyes’ training would whip them into shape and keep them in line— he had no time for disobedience or insubordination. And this training regimen will make sure they know who is in charge.

Calum Darrow is uncharacteristically quiet, arms crossed and a scowl of displeasure. He has one of his hips cocked to the side as he stands by his twin brother. Conall Darrow is reserved, eyes drooped from the reduced amount of sleep but his attention is something that withers the soul, an attentive wolf on the hunt. Both of their heterochromatic eyes are laser focused on the commander, but the man shows nothing to indicate if the intensity disturbs him.

The twins were good at making people uncomfortable, but they also liked to just fuck with others.

Sunya Yang has a cup of coffee in her delicate hand, the rich smell and steam has her smiling dreamily. The young hacker is quiet, standing just a little closer to the twins. She had been sought out specifically by someone in Overwatch, in regards of the security systems that branches throughout the whole of the base. She would be going to them after the morning session would end.

Si Woo Sato is scowling like a man who is ready to murder anyone who gets within two feet of him. It is obvious that no one is getting close enough to him and that is how the Hellhounds knew how to deal with the good doctor. He is leaning against the wall as he is studiously ignoring everyone and looking through his notes on his tablet.

To anyone who knew, he looked like Angela when she has far too many patients returning from missions— the good doctors were one in the same— exhausted from everyone else’s bullshit.

Quiet stood beside Karou, the two remained closer to one another than the rest of the Hellhounds were to each other. The two snipers were not touching but they were within range, if the need to move arises. Karou has a smile that exudes nothing but distinct grace that is probably thanks to her nationality. Quiet had an expression that is nothing but neutral, relaxed and loose in her upright position. She is ever graceful with that otherworldly presence.

And despite the way she displays herself, looming and eyes dark enough to appear black, she appears content with the way her blue haired counterpart takes most of the attention. She is gratified with where she stands. Her expression only darkens slightly whenever someone takes to peeking glances at her fellow sniper’s hair. The blue is bright and iridescent when the gym area is only splashed with rather washed out colors.

“That ends this morning’s introduction to the morning training session. I will be evaluating everyone in the sparring matches, to determine the difference in everyone’s physical levels and to be able to fix the regimen to accommodate all of y’all.”

Someone had entered the gym at the last bit of the commander’s speech, snorting at something and drawing the commander’s attention to the newcomer. It is the young man in the cowboy hat and strange fashion sense— obviously one not born to feel shame as he is still wearing that belt.

And he is accompanied by a black-haired cyborg. He has tubes in his back and has nothing with him aside from a katana and the sheath for the sword. Most of his body had been reconstructed, only a portion of his left side is flesh. And his arm bore deep scars.

Whoever had left those scars had been cruel to deny him a swift end.

Fylkir smiles at the newcomers but his attention remains on Commander Reyes. Calum tenses slightly as his brother only plainly stares before he turns his judgmental attention to the cowboy. Sun sips at her coffee, drumming her fingers on her lap and tapping her foot, as Sato continues sifting through his notes, indifferent and scowling. Karou smiles pleasantly but a little more sharply than normal, her fingernails painted in black are pinching her palms as she hears the whispers of the recruits. Quiet only glares at one of the hard cases when he spits some obscenity under his breath, her hand behind her back and feeling for her _kodachi_.

“McCree, run fifteen laps,” Reyes’ squint sends a shiver down everyone’s back.

But the man in the hat only splutters, “What? Com’ on, boss, I jus’ got ‘ere!”

“Twenty laps,” Reyes replies with a sharper squint.

McCree dashes off the platform towards the track, not wanting any more involuntary laps to be added. The cyborg follows after him but at his own leisurely walking pace, amusement glittering in his green eyes that has red flash in them. His faceplate hides most of his face, but it is plainly obvious he would be smiling behind it as McCree is cursing through his laps.

Reyes’ booming voice takes everyone’s attention back, “Pick someone close to your own weight and height, if you can, and get to your mats.”

The hard cases are nitpicky, but the recruits are eager and quickly claim their partners amongst themselves. The commander remains standing where he is positioned as the crowds break and fall in pairs to each of the mats amongst the floor. The Hellhounds remain where they are, but the others seem to pick up on the fact that the mat that is near them are for them and keep away.

“Conall,” Quiet steps forth towards the mats, clad in a wraparound sports bra and stretchy leggings that bore the Blackwatch logo at her hip, “I did not forget about what happened with the bombs.”

Calum turned his head, tattooed arms crossed and a bead of sweat followed the sharp lines of his clenched jaw. He avoids eye contact but winces when he notices Reyes looking at him with concealed curiosity. He had a fear for Quiet on the mats, it seemed.

Reyes raises his eyebrow higher as Conall stepped onto the mats with a grin growing on his usually stoic face. Conall did not have _enough_ fear, it seemed.

“Mebbe, this will be th’ day I finally beat ye, _Sg_ _áile_ ,” his silver and gold eyes alit with a fiercesome glint.

Quiet’s dark eyes has a dangerous light shining in them. A small quirk of her mouth is enough for everyone except a curious Reyes and a smirking Conall to take a step back. She had wrapped her left hand, the wrappings more for supporting her wrist, and her right remained bare.

Quiet flexes her fingers, nodding to Conall, “You are welcome to try, _Lup_.”

Conall chuckles, chest rumbling as he takes off his hoodie, revealing his tattooed flesh. The colorful swirling on his hands continue with dark lines that curl over his upper arms and go past the straps of his flimsy tank top, reaching past his shoulders and underneath to his back. When he flexes his muscles as he turns to loom over Quiet’s tall frame, most of the recruits seem entranced with watching the both of them.

“Do not think I forgot about you, _Şoim_ ,” Quiet speaks offhandedly as her smile is aimed at Conall.

Calum tenses, sweating a little more as he had been called out.

“I have the stronger emitter equipped,” Sato’s tablet has his eyes solely fixated on it, but he has the ability to multitask on five separate things fluidly, if he so wished.

Sun is sipping her coffee leisurely and a holographic screen is up with a red light indicating that her program is recording the sparring matches. Fylkir boldly laughs. His bulging muscles ripples with every movement and he remains sitting on his chair. He is not worried about his soulbound. No one is worried for Conall, as the Hellhounds know that this is merely sparring and not Quiet looking to beat the ever living shit out of the demolitionist.

Karou is cheering for Quiet, “Beat him up, _láska_!”

And the blue haired sniper switches to Conall, amber eyes flashing viciously as she smiles prettily and vaguely threatening, “I do not mind any bruises. But I will shoot you, if anything happens to her face. Do you hear me, Conall?”

Reyes walks past the mats with the clustered hard cases and closer to the new recruits, just a bit more closer to the Hellhounds. His eyes move and watch the rest of those on the other mats. But the Hellhounds has his attention as well. A small smile is picking up on his brooding expression.

Conall chuckles, “Worry not, _bhean gorm_.”

The Hellhounds hold their breath as Conall, who is a few more inches taller, smiles once more down at Quiet. The sniper mutters under her breath, dark eyes glittering and lips pulling back to bare her teeth right at him. They remain still even as the young hacker taps at the holographic screen to start recording.

Commander Reyes takes another step closer to observe.

The Romanian sniper slaps away the flying fist that the Scottish demolitionist swung at a speed that none of the recruits could even see. The skin to skin contact is a harsh clapping that resounds throughout the area but it is her smile that has a cold feeling trailing its fingers down people’s spines. Quiet is swift to slip underneath his second swing and is gripping at his shirt to pull him closer to her. She kicks out in between his ankles, hooks around one, and the man falls onto the mat with an outraged grunt.

Quiet steps away as Conall is quick to return himself to his feet. She glances to the commander that is watching but drops to her knees when Conall is swinging at her open back. The Scot growls playfully but it is cut short. Quiet flies in movement, instantaneous and barely keeps herself to the floor as she once more moves in between his ankles.

Conall free falls as she pulls at his ankles. She combat rolls backwards as Conall propels forward.

“Enough wi’ ‘at, _Sgàile_ ,” the demolitionist throws out a punch at her, “ye gods-damned _feachd nàdair_ , stop pretending.”

Quiet deflects his punch and claps her open palm on his exposed side. The man grunts and bares his teeth at her, excitement in his mismatched eyes. The sniper’s dark eyes glint and she drives her palm into his vulnerable chest, right into the diaphragm and taking his breath away. A black, cursive tattoo peeks out just underneath the crossed bands of her sports bra on the left side of her ribcage.

Karou is cheering alongside Sun. Sato does not spare a glance— of all people, he knew when the damage would become too much. Fylkir is applauding for Conall with Calum. Reyes chuckles low as the rowdiness spreads to the rest of the gym’s inhabitants.

Quiet hisses when Conall backhands her with his knuckles first. The two back away from another, dark eyes narrowed in fury and mismatched ones lit up with a blazing fire. Her nose spurts with red, she wipes at it when Karou voices out the blood leaving Quiet’s nose. The Romanian’s nostrils delicately flare as she listens to Karou’s complaint aimed at the demolitionist.

That struck a sore spot.

The sniper punches Conall back to return the favor, the sickening crack of his nose has the recruits wincing and Sato humming as his eyes finally leave his tablet. The good doctor takes out his emitter from a pocket in his multifunctional hoodie. Sun giggles and Calum is inching away from the mats just a little further. With their bloodied noses, the sparring duo grapple one another to the ground in a mess of swinging limbs and curses in their mother tongues.

Quiet grouses, “Karou said not the face, _tâmpit_.”

“Aye, weel back at ye, _T_ _aibhse_ ,” he spat back at her, his bloodied nose worse off than hers, and he smirks viciously back at her.

Quiet hooks a punch into the Scot’s gut. The Scot growls out a bark of laughter.

“Ah, thaur she is! Ye hae bin holdin’ back as ay late!” The demolitionist throws her away from him when she knees him in the same spot she had punched him in the stomach, “Give me aw ye got!”

She had been wound up for the past couple of days, tense shoulders and clenched jaw— all her pent-up aggression after their last mission had just been lying in the background since the Hellhounds retreated into the dropship. Conall is always the one on the receiving end whenever they sparred because he had been the only one who could keep up with her. He had always been there to keep her from snapping and not bouncing back.

Quiet sneers, teeth bared and the red dripping from her chin now, “You asked for it, _Lup_ …”

\- ༺༒༻ -

 “Feck, when did ye start hittin’ thes hard, _feachd nàdair_?”

Conall crumbles to the floor, holding onto his shoulder and complains about the other side of his face that she struck. After a rather vulgar curse that sent Sunya into a bout of giggles, Quiet had popped his shoulder out of the socket and relocated it back into place to bring out the pain some more. She had not been amused, she understands the twins’ language just as well as she could with Czech or her soulbound’s own mother tongue.

Quiet winces when she sits next to the Scot, “Getting old now, _Lup_?”

Her knee is twinging from a phantom pain and the ribs of her right side creak a little more than normal. The dark redheaded bastard had popped her left wrist and he knew damn well that was a low blow. Her own cursing had him and just about the rest of the Hellhounds blanching and that is how she got the opening to put him into a headlock with her thighs.

“Ye are one tae talk, ye nightmare.”

He damn well deserved what he got in the spar. Quiet glares at him in response, not feeling sorry for him at all. Sato clicks on the emitter and both of them sigh out in immediate relief.

“You are a godsend, Sato,” Conall gripes aloud and his arm hides his eyes from the rest of the world.

Sato looks to Conall, with an acerbic smile that fades as quickly as it came to be, “You are not going to think that way after I crack back your nose, _baka_.”

“ _Vă mulţumesc_.” Quiet sways away from Karou’s inquiring hands, “Still sore, Karou.”

Quiet closes her eyes as Karou offers comfort in soft-spoken words, her hands designed for making art are careful in applying a nose strip to help outside the effects of Sato’s emitter. Both of the snipers lean against the wall as Calum and Sun take up to the mats. People are cheering just as excitedly for the playful round of throwing one another with jesting words and flying fists.

The commander approaches the Hellhounds, brooding face still on and eyes darkening with every step he takes towards them, “Fylkir, Quiet. I need to discuss an upcoming mission with you.”

Conall sits back up and walks away with Sato accompanying him with another emitter. Karou sighs, patting Quiet on the head in a rather affectionate way like one would do to an obedient child. Reyes watches as Quiet, a light blush on her cheeks, picks up Sato’s remaining emitter and stands with Fylkir.

“Where would you like to take this briefing, Commander Reyes?” Fylkir’s bold smile still remains.

\- ༺༒༻ -

The office for the Blackwatch commander seems more cramped than it did than the last time the three of them had been together. The space feels taken by the overwhelming presence of the man himself. And it probably did not feel less suffocating as a seven-foot-tall Icelandic man and a second six-foot-tall person taking up the remainder of the room. Quiet claims the seat on the left and Fylkir has the right creaking under his weight.

“This is a retrieval mission, one that I personally fine-combed over as to make sure a mission like the one you saved our asses on does not happen again. At first, we believed the cargo was just some sort of weapon, as the documents implied. But then, one of hackers picked up on _medical_ charts.”

Reyes quickly slaps down a folder of information, opening it for them before he takes his seat. He removed his beanie from his head, rubbing at his scalp and running his fingers through the fluffy curls on top of his head. The stress in his shoulder had not lessened even as he took in steadying breaths. Quiet picks up said medical charts as Fylkir takes on the route plans.

“Excellent plans, with the right people committing the execution,” Fylkir graciously chuckles.

Reyes quirks up a corner of his mouth with a grateful nod, curiously looking over to Quiet. The Romanian is taking in the charts’ numbers, her dark eyes contemplative as she rifles through the other papers. Fylkir returns the plans to the desk, barely glancing over to his soulbound as she only continues her studying over the charts. The chair protests in the shifting of his weight.

When the silence becomes slightly awkward, with Fylkir’s green eyes unabashedly staring to Reyes’. The commander’s shifts to avoid too long eye contact and his attention always moves from one to the other. Quiet returns the charts’ information, she takes another glance at the other papers; looking to the roster. Reyes relaxes only the slightest and Fylkir chuckles.

“Sato should look them over,” she muses lowly as she takes in the only two confirmed assets on the roster; Jesse McCree and Gabriel Reyes.

Reyes asking for the Hellhound captain and his second in command meant he wanted them to come with him. It meant that he wanted the Hellhounds to assist. That meant way too many things— and Quiet is still not too sure on how the commander is quick to trust the Hellhounds. They were vigilantes, they were no military group and they were certainly not operatives or in contract with the black ops sister division to Overwatch.

Fylkir hums, running his hand over his bearded face, “If this implies that the cargo is an actual person and not just a weapon, the security is already increased. This retrieval mission cannot fall to stealth alone. More firepower, more frontal assault.”

“Calum would be best to keep the attention on him. Conall would rebuff them during the extraction,” the Hellhound sniper barely glances to the route plans, because she would make ones for the snipers herself.

Reyes seems pleased with the way they are already implying their acceptance.

“Sunya would remain on the dropship but monitor the cargo’s stats. Sato could probably stay with the _sá litli_ ,” Fylkir adds with a smile, green eyes gleaming as usual.Top of FormBottom of Form

Quiet looks to her soulbound before shifting her attention to Reyes and asking, “Karou and I will thin out the additional security. Would you want us to extract whatever this cargo is, _Comandat_?”

Reyes blinks at the suggestion, thinking the formation out as he strokes his chin, “You are the least likely to have the any heat on you, depending on your positions.”

“A quick drop in, then,” Quiet looks to Fylkir and raising a dark eyebrow that had a slim scar that cut through it, “I’ll extract the cargo, Karou will keep them off me.”

Fylkir becomes contemplative, the smile lessening silently as he thought the formation out as well.

“Sounds like a good start to the plan,” Fylkir nods afterwards.

The two Hellhounds look to Reyes, one with gleaming green eyes and the other with patient dark ones. The Blackwatch commander notices that this is something else. This is more than just about a mission for extraction. This is their acceptance of joining Blackwatch and allowing someone else to become a part of their pack— to _lead_ their pack as Fylkir and Quiet does.

“We leave in two hours. I have already sent for McCree to be there as the rest of you come to the landing platform before we take off,” he informs them as he gathers up the papers.

Fylkir nods, “Calum and Conall had said they would be visiting the armory, said something about finding an _angry gnome_ that cursed at them for the way they handle their armor. Is that not entertaining, my _mo anam cara_?”

Reyes’ eyebrows raise higher than ever. Angry gnome? Christ, that was hilarious. And he had a feeling he knew exactly who the Darrows had found in the armory. There is only one man who operates the workshop after all. Quiet mutters under her breath, questioning the phrase the Darrow’s had used to describe someone. Fylkir only smiles wider.

“Sato is probably with them; he had been wanting to talk about more enhancements to his shields and emitter. Sun told me that she was visiting a… a gorilla? _Este un fel de ințelesuri ascunsă_?” Quiet frowns after retelling her own report.

Fylkir raises his own eyebrows, “No, my friend, I think it might be literal.”

Reyes stands from his seat, looking at Quiet with assessing eyes, “Oh, you’re talking about Winston, the damn ape. Also, I have something of yours to give back, stay a moment, Quiet.”

When the commander realizes that both the Icelandic captain and Romanian second-in-command blinks at him, curiosity evidence in their gazes, he is quick to shrug. Fylkir stands from his seat, taking in a deep breath and bellowing in laughter. He claps onto Quiet’s shoulder, the Romanian does not flinch underneath his hand as she continues to remain sitting at Reyes’ request.

“I will see you on the platform, Quiet. Until then, Commander Reyes,” Fylkir says his parting words and leaves the office.

Quiet remains still, the languorous wildcat ever so patient and watchful. Her eyes remain heavily upon Reyes. The commander pulls out a duffel bag, _her_ duffel bag, from behind his desk, plopping it down onto the top and opening it. He pulls out the needle knives from them and offers them to her. The sniper stands from her seat and steps closer to his desk with silent footing.

“Hey,” Reyes seems hesitant and that has Quiet pausing for him, “I needed to ask, what was with the glass star?”

When that mission in Morocco led to the Hellhounds being detained, their belongings had been searched through for anything else. In Quiet’s, there was a rather intricate glass object carefully wrapped up and boxed as a gift. It was a multidimensional star that could be opened for a candle holder inside, it was a Moroccan lantern star— its craftmanship was exquisite.

It was also goddamn expensive to have it made.

Quiet blinks, slowly and seemingly undeterred with biding her time. She carefully picks up the pair of needle knives from his outstretched hand. She combs her fingers through her hair and has the chopsticks returned to their rightful places to hold her hair in a bun, some strands trailing down her neck.

She tilts her head, that same tenderness back from her time in the interrogation room returns, “Karou likes glass art.”

Quiet watches the way his mouth quirks up at the corners. She thinks Karou would adore the way he smiles too.

“Thanks for giving it back first,” she bites back a smile when his confused expression crops up, “she loved it, worth the trouble of having it wrapped up the way I had it done.”

He nodded, smoldering eyes still watching her closely and curiosly, “See you on the platform, Quiet.”

“ _Comandat_ ,” she salutes, professional enough to match to military standards as Fylkir had taught her.

\- ༺༒༻ -

“Nice to meet the both of ya, quite the pair of darlin’s!”

Quiet remembered the look in his eyes on the landing platform at their arrival after Morocco, studious and wary, but it did not match to his bright and smiling face now. And she still thinks he is making himself out to be a fool with that hat and the belt. But Karou, sweet and kind as always, laughs lightly by Quiet’s side.

“The name’s Jesse McCree, pleasure to meet that both of y’all.”

Quiet blinks, watching him and continues on her casual pace. Now she knew why he had laughed during the training session and why the commander had made him do laps. It appears that the commander and the cowboy had a more personal relationship. It only confuses her more as to why the commander is easily trusting the Hellhounds.

Karou is smiling at the young man, “You are quite the handsome one, aren’t you, _kovboj_?”

She had always been good at dazzling others.

Jesse McCree blushes, pulling at his hat as he shakes Karou’s hand. When he offers the same hand to Quiet, she shakes it as well. Only because it is required of her to be polite— Karou would reprimand her for doing anything else, otherwise. Karou loops her arm under Quiet’s, earning a fond smile from the Romanian. The pair of snipers were the last ones to be arriving to the platform with Jesse McCree coming along.

“ _Nu_ - _l scandaliza_ , _dragă_ ,” Quiet lightly intones to the blue haired Hellhound.

Karou only laughs, only arching up a perfect eyebrow at Quiet that has the Romanian stare back at her. The two were sharing near paragraphs of unspoken words with their connected gaze. Jesse shoots a look of confusion. And the trio makes their way to the waiting platform. The commander and most of the Hellhounds already gathered by the dropship. Karou runs ahead, only after she bids airy parting words to go to meet up with the gathered group.

“You are looking mighty well, fitting in even, considering how y’all got in,” Jesse is smiling to her.

She takes in his appearance once more, eyes roaming from the hat to his boots.

The hat is probably the oldest thing that he has on him, it is slightly faded with age, but the material is well made. It could very well outlast him, considering possible future danger that comes with his career. He has a red scarf, more like a handkerchief compared to her own. The black compression fatigue shirt underneath the white cotton of his button up top reaches up to cover his neck. He hast brown, leather chaps over his combat pants that ends in the inside of his boots with those spinners at the back of his heels. He is truly dressed as a cowboy in his American fashion.

And she continues to close the space of the platform to the awaiting group and watching Karou’s dancing mid-run.

Quiet tightens her rifle bag strap, the bag is a comfort that weighs on her back. She checks at the back of her waist for her _kodachi_ , the Darrows had gotten her a new sheath with their trip to the workshop and armory. The moonblades hang onto her hips with metal clips that were a match to Sato’s chakrams. The bullet proof bodysuit underneath her second layer of clothes had been the first thing to be put on when she geared up.

“Don’t talk much, d’ya? That’s alright, _jefe_ over there is the same, I always talk enough for the both of us,” Jesse rattles on.

Quiet raises an eyebrow. Sun had restraint with her boundless energy and she is indefinitely younger than Jesse McCree. Or is this Quiet finally reaching the age where she cannot understand the youth of the newer generations?

Jesse smiles, tipping his hat at her, “You know, you’re not so bad. There are people who are far off and far more worse than you and the rest of the Hellhounds. I think you guys are pretty cool, with the whole vigilante thing.”

Quiet tenses at Jesse’s compliment. He knew nothing of her. He is far too trusting as his commander is. Overwatch, with their golden man who seems to be a man of a complex duality. Blackwatch, with the man who still has a kindness in his eyes that he hides behind with his glowering and brooding— they are too unguarded and naïve.

“I am not,” she finally deigns to speak, clipped and muttering underneath her breath.

Jesse looked back to her, confused, “What do ya mean?”

 “This, this is all a mask, Jesse McCree. She makes me better; she makes me want to be better. But I am the worse out of the lot of them. You should trust your instincts more, wherever it is that you had buried them, cowboy,” Quiet looked forward, finding blue hair and amber eyes.

Jesse frowns, digesting her words and pursing his lips, “I think that’s a crock of shit, miss.”

Quiet’s dark eyes are expressive and soft as she follows Karou’s movements in the distance, “ _Nu-i așa_ , cowboy?”

Jesse pulls the lip of his hat down to cover his eyes as he looks to the Hellhound sniper sideways. He did not know what to think of her. He really did not know how to read her.

As they both finally reach the Hellhounds and Reyes, Sun and Karou are quickly handing out the commlinks. Karou chucks one at Quiet, the Romanian catches it one handed and calibrates it as she moves onto the ship. Jesse fumbles, not quite expecting to get one as well and Karou only smiles at him as she moves along to the twins and Fylkir.

“Quiet, check,” Sun’s usually cheerful face is serious as she begins to link in the Hellhounds, the commander and the cowboy.

Reyes stares at the earpiece, somewhat suspicious, but connects it as he watches the Darrows and the good doctor quickly move in after Quiet and Sun. Jesse follows after him, whooping excitedly. Sato is mumbling ominously as he rifles through on his own tablet. The Fylkir is chuckling as always. The ship powers up.

Sun is efficient, her holograms pop up and dart out of view as she taps away, “Captain, check. Nighthawk, stop tweaking with that, check. Commander, check.”

Conall is quick to heft up his duffel over his back and moves in synchronicity with the pair of snipers. Quiet and Karou begin checking the inventory. Reyes moves to talk with the pilot. Jesse sits next to Sun, earning himself a friendly smile as she checks in the with rest of the commlinks.

“Wildflower and Starburst, check. You’re in too, _Gunslinger_.”

Jesse tips his hat in appreciation for the codename.

Reyes sits down on Jesse’s open side, “Alright, everybody, this is Operation Dreamcatcher.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romanian  
> Lup - Wolf  
> Şoim - Hawk  
> tâmpit - dumbass  
> Vă mulţumesc - thank you  
> Este un fel de ințelesuri ascunsă - is that some kind of hidden meaning  
> Nu-l scandaliza, dragă - do not scandalize/scare them, dear/sweetheart  
> Nu-i așa - is it
> 
> Czech  
> láska - love
> 
> Gaelic  
> Sgáile - Shadow  
> bhean gorm - blue lady  
> feachd nàdair - force of nature  
> Taibhse - Ghost
> 
> Icelandic  
> sá litli - little one  
> mo anam cara - soul mate, soul friend
> 
> Spanish  
> jefe - boss


	6. Mysteries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to make Gabriel blush. I think this will do it.

The silence is somewhat awkward on the flight to the border between Spain and France.

But the Hellhounds, Reyes and Jesse make do with filling in the silence with small things. Jesse is whistling and fiddling with the brim of his hat. Reyes is leaning his back to the metal of the plane and reading the rest of the mission’s information. Sato is reading the medical charts of the cargo for the twentieth time, muttering in a mixture of Korean and Japanese. Sun is tapping away at her hologram screens, she runs her fingers through her ponytail’s ends as she worries over the code for her program.

Fylkir is the only one taking a power nap.

“Quiet, ye hae onie phrases up yer sleeves?”

Reyes and Jesse level questioning looks to Calum’s shit eating grin aimed at the Hellhound sniper.

The berserker is twirling one of his Desert Eagles, the engravings of wings decorate one while stars are on the other. He is dressed in another Henley, his armor plates have been rehabilitated from the last mission and secured onto his chest with their sturdy straps, the formfitting combat pants have multiple pockets with the ends stuffed into his boots. His brass knuckles that give kinetic energy blasts when appropriately charged are secured in a pouch opposite of his ammo bag.

Conall is tweaking at one of his contraptions, concentrated on it and is not smiling. This one is for paralyzing with electric bursts, the trigger is giving him problems. His silver and gold eyes are sharp with his focus on his work. The tattoos winding up from his hands and up his forearms give the impression as living things as his muscles are in movement. The blue of his eye is dimmed by his furrowed brows and takes on a stormy gray hue, the brown became murky with his displeasure as he fiddles with the pin mechanism.

Quiet is leaned back in her seat, sitting across from Reyes and Jesse, holding her rifle with both arms and head tilted back with her eyes closed. She is dressed similar as she had in Morocco, black fatigues and her reinforced, light soled boots made for silent but unhindered movement, the goggles over her head. The needle knives holding up her hair shine with their pearl handles and the small bell that hangs from one of them jingles whenever the plane jolts.

Karou is humming lightly, shuffling items into the bags for the both of them and settling Quiet’s bag by the Romanian’s feet with a light whistle. Karou’s bright blue scarf is wrapped into her hair along with her own needle knives holding her iridescent locks in place. Her graceful neck is decorated with the goggles hanging between her collarbones. She winks at Jesse, making him cough awkwardly. Karou is purring a lilting tune once more.

At first, the commander and the cowboy thought that Quiet is asleep as Fylkir is. They had never seen Quiet in such an open position, she is never one to stay still long enough for anyone to catch her in a vulnerable state. But soon enough, Quiet breathes in becoming aware of the attention that is now on her. The Hellhound leans forward after exhaling steadily, her primed rifle still in her hold as she deigns to reply, eyes still closed.

“ _Pulvis et umbra sumus_ ,” she speaks the litany with the smoothness of a poet, “we are but dust and shadows…”

No one moves, signaling that they are all waiting for the explanation.

Quiet opens her dark eyes, steadily at her leisure, to look across to Reyes and Jesse before settling to cryptically speak, “Though while we are pieces of the fallen stars to follow the will of the world and wisps compared to the rest of the creation, our problems now are but hurdles in our lives.”

Reyes watches the rest of the Hellhounds shift their attention to Quiet. It feels like prayer; they lean closer as though to gather to her. This is a linking connection between the seven vigilantes and there seems to be nothing more glorious with the way Quiet cantillates to them. Reyes and Jesse holds their breath as the Hellhound sniper gazes into an unknown distance, one born of either memory or of another world entirely.

“But do what you will, because time is our true enemy and time is what defeats us all in the end. There is no need to dread the future, for we cannot control it— but may we define it. Do what you want because at the end; nothing but shadows and dust will remain.”

Calum holsters his beloved handguns, warmly chuckling and winking at Jesse’s stares of awe and wonder. Conall finalizes his shock bomb, grunting in satisfaction and grabs at his carbine. Sunya types in the final code to Zion’s new update and cackling at the new HUDs that begins to form into her newest version of her hologram screens. Fylkir is waking up, his chest rumbles like thunder as he groans and stretches himself from the lingering haziness of his nap. Sato is clicking on a boosting emitter, icy blue eyes flashing with something ancient and ever present.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Like calls to like,” Karou adds in as she rearranges her own bag.

Quiet shifts her attention to Karou and nods to her. The two snipers share a smile, Karou’s bright and dazzling whilst Quiet’s is assuring and grounding. The Romanian’s is the first to fade, like smiling hurts too much. Karou looks down to her own bag as she closes up the bag, still smiling and humming, bumping her soft soled reinforced shoes to her darker half’s.

“Where dae people e’en learn Latin anymore? Ye ‘re a whole puzzle, aw on yer own, _Sgàile_ ,” Calum winks once again with that shit-eating grin still on his bearded face.

Reyes watches as Quiet simply shrugs, not seeming to care about the fact that she just _knew_ how to speak in a dead language practically as old as time itself. That, or she did not deign to answer to Calum. The Romanian tilts her head back up and closes her eyes as a way to center herself and does not react as Karou jostles the seat next to her.

Reyes stiffens when Karou smiles rather fondly at him. Her dark amber eyes are searching and sharp with something he is familiar with but cannot quite name. Karou only looks away from the commander when Quiet mutters in Romanian that only has the golden sniper _giggle_.

Karou hovers her right hand over her mouth, playful but sly, and the silver band on the fourth finger shines.

\- ༺༒༻ -

“We are getting to the drop zone. Gear up, Hellhounds,” Reyes hosts up his shotguns.

Sunya and Sato remain sitting, facing one another with determination. Her screens are spread out between the hacker and the healer, her fingers typing at high speeds and his own tapping to find what he needs. The younger Hellhound had found more medical charts that had been recorded, confirming the healer’s suspicions of the cargo being in a neutralized state.

And the blueprints that Zion had picked up on had been something close to a machine that resembled a coffin. The cryotube required a code, one that is easy to find. But getting to the code is not the problem, it is the defense mechanisms and procedures that would prove to make things tricky. There are two layers of defense, a barrier shield and the machine’s own barrier and defense mechanisms itself. The barriers would take damage as any other shield would. The cryotube could easily cut off its own life support— it is built to sustain and kill.

Conall shouldering on his carbine and clipping on his pouches of explosive goods. He clips on the tactical visor that gives aide with his hearing and grants a holographic of the layout on the field to help him find the weakest structures or best chokepoints. Calum is fisting the air, pulling on his knuckle dusters and clipping on his protective mask that covers most of his face, the visor has a crimson flash as his brother’s has a sapphire one.

The berserker turns his head, ready for a pep speech on kicking ass and taking names.

“Somehow, you do not even have to open your mouth to make my head positively ache, Calum. An exceptional gift to possess, _truly_ ,” Quiet mutters something else that is not polite as she quickly interjects him.

She and Karou would be dropping off last. The Hellhound sniper duo would claim a perch up high to thin out the distracted security, the roof of the monastery is made of stained glass but should be sturdy to support the two women. People typically never take on such risky standing, at least not without some scouting beforehand, but it was never said that the Romanian or the Czech were the types to play safe when it came to covering their team’s asses.

Reyes snorts, passing by her to Calum’s side as he is leading the assault team. Conall and Jesse were going to take the spotlight and Fylkir would be bringing up the rear as a one-man team for defense. Reyes blinks when Quiet raises an eyebrow, brushing her shoulder against his, a hint of something glittering in her eyes as she studies him.

She tips her chin to him. It is the only sign that she deigns to give to him. And he understands the message clear enough: _stay safe_.

\- ༺༒༻ -

“ _Jefe_ , they who I think they are and ya definitely know?”

Jesse is chomping at the bit, restless energy surging through him. But if there is one person who can be able to keep his hands steady and mind calculating and cool aside from Gabriel, then it is Jesse goddamn McCree. The younger man stands by Conall’s side, the ex-soldier stood a couple more inches above the cowboy’s six feet. Jesse looks every bit the trained agent he has grown into from the foul-mouthed young teenager that had been picked up after the sting operation that nearly ended the Dreadlock gang.

And he only looked out of place because of his goddamn hat.

Gabriel nods, growling, “ _Talon_.”

Calum frowns, elbowing at his twin, “Quiet, she had said thaur had bin whispers from the undergroond. Th’ rumors ur true ‘en.”

Gabriel throws a side glance to the three Hellhounds that stood with him.

Fylkir is frowning which twists his grievous facial scars. The daring wistfulness and playful cadence are replaced by the battleworn habits of his once glorious past and it deepens his crow’s feet and shadow over his laugh lines. Conall is baring his teeth, a darkness returning to his near glowing silver and gold eyes and his shoulders tense. Calum’s only tells are the tightening hands on his Desert Eagles and the glare coming from his mask’s visor.

“Enough chatter, we are here for the cargo and not be gossiping about shadowy organizations,” Sato’s reprimand is sharp.

Everyone hears Karou’s airy laugh over Quiet’s judgmental _tsk_.

The guards are on a rotation. There are so many openings, so many inconsistencies from the careless mistakes of the Talon agents. The Hellhounds have their own intimate flow when it comes to handling missions but the vigilantes are no longer playing on the field with their rules.

They are learning to operate as Blackwatch.

“Quiet, Wildflower,” Reyes begins with a near sultry chuckle.

The pause is exhilarating, filling with an electric charge that rivals Conall’s newest creation. The commander could see a flash of blue high up. And he swears that he feels dark eyes staring back at him through a scope. Nothing could rival that blood pumping feeling that has his curls curling in his boots.

“Do us the honors, won’t you?”

The Hellhounds are always the ones to achieve their victories, no matter what.

“ _Floare la ureche_ , _Comandat_ ,” the commlink replies with a resonating, throaty laughter on one resolute Romanian and the giggling of an unpredictable Czech, “ _S potěšením_ , _fešák_.”

And the world is drowned with bullets and explosions.

\- ༺༒༻ -

“The cryotube’s stats are going off the roof! Someone, _anybody_ , get to them now!!!”

Sunya’s voice is overflowing with horror and racing anxiety. Sato is cursing in nothing but his native language.

The Hellhounds proved resilient in the face of the reinforcements without their hacker and healer. Calum had been given a biotic emitter from Sato, planting in on the ground between Reyes, Jesse and the three Hellhounds on the field’s ground level. But as they hold off the reinforcements with, the snipers from above had a fight of their own.

Karou keeps the hordes thinned out, a game of cat and mouse ensues between her and those who have come to notice her. Quiet is swift on her feet, biding her fellow sniper a short farewell, shooting at the stained glass and giving her position away. And Quiet is dropping as the glass gives way underneath her.

The windows from above cracks further and soon enough shatters and falls.

Gabriel turns his head up to see someone falling with the large shards of the falling roof. The three Hellhounds, McCree and himself, watches as Quiet is still shooting in her freefall. Karou is laughing brightly through the commlinks in a flurry of her mother tongue. The bungee cord Quiet had attached to her belt loops stretch out in the air from the metal frames of the roof she had shot her way through.

Conall chucks one his explosives at the barrier of the cargo with Karou’s insistence. Calum quickly swaps his position with Jesse, swinging the cowboy around with their arms hooked at the elbows. His bullets are shot at the sticky bombs that stuck to the barrier. Gabriel flings out his arm and shoots one shotgun at the barrier along with Calum and still covering Fylkir’s back. And the explosion is epic.

The still falling Hellhound sniper is shooting right at the cryotube’s secondary protective barrier. And her bullets are powerful enough to break right through the rest of the damaged shield. And as the explosion subsides, the smoke is clearing away and letting sunshine and view through the hologrammed glass.

The person is revealed in the inside, they have their palms outstretched as though they were reaching for Quiet. A man, a young man just passing into adulthood, is inside and dying. His eyes are glossy and tearful as though he is watching his avenging angel finally coming to save him— the relief, the gratitude shining clearly through.

Another bullet punches right through the barrier and into the glass of the cryotube. A hiss erupts in a high pitch as the pressurized tube allows air to get sucked into it. The man in the cryotube is gasping in the fresh air greedily.

When the Hellhound sniper lands on top of the cryotube, swinging like a pendulum with the momentum, she kicks out her feet towards the last barrier. It shatters alongside the fragments of the stained crystal roof that land all over the monastery. The sniper shoots once more into the unprotected glass to allow for more air to help stabilize the man’s breathing.

She pulls up her bodysuit’s face cover as some more of the glass is cracking, lightning lines flaring out along the length of the machine. Quiet drops her rifle to the side to thrust out her hands to punch into the glass. The sniper does it until the glass finally gives and the glass is painted in the red that bursts from her knuckles.

The man is gasping out silently, covering his face with his arms on instinct and Quiet finally punches through the rest of it. She rips the tubes out from the inside, claws through and begins to pull him out. The man clings to her, a young buck just newly born to the world and attempting to keep close to the mother doe. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and Quiet is wrapping an arm around him, keeping him upright with her, after she picks back up her rifle.

“I’ve got him. Zion, give me an exit,” Quiet’s muffled voice is grim and low against the rest of the shooting and the action of Blackwatch against Talon.

\- ༺༒༻ -

The returning flight on the plane consisted of the young man being stabilized with Sato’s expertise. Sun powered up her systems to look for any identification of the man but surprisingly, there is none. And Karou had scolded Quiet for her recklessness for punching glass. Quiet endured it with a bowed head, like a kicked puppy.

Honestly, Angela’s wrath would be more than Karou’s possibly ever could.

And Quiet did not look forward to it.

\- ༺༒༻ -

Angela’s wrath had been a sight.

But Angela realized that Quiet had been scolded by Sato and Karou already, so, she calmed down afterwards with a heavy sigh. Quiet smiles at Angela, flexing her fingers and nodding to Angela as her thanks. Quiet catches the sight of that black haired cyborg hanging around the corner, waiting for the young doctor to be free of patients.

Angela, however, had different plans, “Quiet… I need to ask: what happened to your body?”

\- ༺༒༻ -

“Quiet… I need to ask: what happened to your body?”

Gabriel jerks away from Jack’s imploring gaze to seek out Angela’s accented voice and to find the one person who always drifted along the back of his mind. What could that possibly mean? Did something happen to the darker half of the snipers of the Hellhounds?

Quiet is right there, head tilted and dark eyes warm, polite with Angela in front of her. Her answer is somewhat muted, audible for the good doctor to hear but not to Gabriel’s enhanced hearing.

“Gabe, what’s wrong?” Jack’s blue eyes are beacons that stings in the white hallways of the medical wing.

The Strike Commander had found the mission rather interesting, finding live cargo during a mission is something entirely else. And so, he had hunted down Gabriel who had been personally escorting the young mystery man with Sato and Sunya.

Fylkir is getting his wounds looked over by another nurse whilst Conall and Calum had went with others. Karou is the only one who had gotten away from even a scratch. But Quiet, the one who punched glass with such focused intensity and did not care for sacrificing her hands to get to the man in the cryotube, she had Angela’s direct care.

“… nothing, Jack.”

\- ༺༒༻ -

“He is specifically asking for the _lady with the dark eyes_. He will only talk to Quiet, I presume,” Angela has her arms crossed, not budging for the overwhelming presence of the commanders of Overwatch and Blackwatch combined.

The door to the medical room opens, Sunya’s youthful existence is coupled with Quiet’s long legs slowly carrying herself after the Hellhound hacker. Quiet’s wounds were fully healed, her hands were no longer wrapped with red bandages. Sun’s smile is brighter than the white walls.

Angela’s smile is small and tired, and there is something else in her, “Good, you are here, Quiet. My patient is asking for you to talk with him.”

Quiet brushes her fingertips over her healed knuckles, almost as though it is nervous habit, but everyone knew that she is simply feeling the miraculous work of the doctor’s work. She nods at Angela’s spoken words. Sunya is quick to bring up a holographic screen, showing off information of the cryotube that housed the young man Quiet had freed.

“Clingy type, maybe hero worship?” Sun quips jokingly.

Quiet merely glances to her young hacker, amusement glittering in her eyes before she recedes back into herself. She greets both commanders with a pleasant but curt _hello_ , before turning to the young doctor.

“Lead the way, Angela,” Quiet defers to the young Swiss doctor.

Sunya is looking between the Strike Commander and Commander Reyes, waiting for permission to start her report on the cryotube and the other cargo that Gabriel and Calum had managed to grab on the way out. Sun nods to Gabriel’s incline of his head, she opens the screen to both commanders.

“From what my program and I have gathered and from Sato’s guess, they were creating a new super soldier. Obviously, where they were sending him means that they were not successful. But Sato has picked up on anomalies in his genetic make up, he believes that he has other abilities than what the both of you have with the SEP, commanders.”

“Sato wants to ask for permission to look after him, but he will not do anything without yours and Angela’s permission,” her tawny eyes are bright and her fingers tapping at other bits of information to pop up.

The Strike Commander frowns, contemplative and all sharp edges, “Permission granted, but he will follow Angela’s lead.”

Sun nods in gratitude. Gabriel clenches his teeth but watches as Quiet reappears from the room. The young man would be resting for a while now. Quiet and Angela are speaking in low tones in the distance. Gabriel remembers hearing Quiet say the doc’s name and turns to Sunya.

“How come she does not call me by my first name? All she ever does is call me _Comandat_.”

It was well known that Gabriel is more laidback than Jack when it came to titles. He had spoken to the Hellhounds during the flight back from the border of Spain and France that he did not mind them calling him by his name, so long as it is them and not in front of recruits or other agents. Fylkir is understandable, he had a high position back in his time during the war, and only called Gabriel by his last name. The Darrows barely blinked. Sato sniffed and referred to him as _Taichou_ — taking after Quiet because it is known that Sato had an unusual soft spot for both snipers but more so for Quiet.

Gabriel grunts in mock annoyance when Jack laughs at the attempt at the accent.

Sunya only gives him a placid smile, “It took her a while to call everyone else, aside from the captain and Karou, by their first names. Believe it or not, but Quiet is rather shy with new people. If you want to try another approach, I suggest taking Conall to the mats, Commander Reyes.”

\- ༺༒༻ -

“You know Krav Maga?”

Quiet’s switches from her previous stance to take on the offensive form for it.

The Romanian shoves her open palm into Conall’s face, scarred fingertips pressing into that straight nose of his without an ounce of mercy from her. The Scot falls once the Romanian slips to the side, securing her hand around the back of his neck and drops to a knee to fling him into the ground onto his front side. Quiet jumps back up, dancing away a few paces and out of the demolitionist’s range to find Reyes watching the both of them with contemplative amusement.

Conall groans, “Did ye really hae tae brin’ ‘at up, _Ceannasaí_?”

Quiet brushes her fingers over her knuckles, still not over the sensation of her skin being healed from the wounds from the mission. And she remembered Angela and Sato’s concerns well.

Conall sits up with another groan, the wind in his sails deflating under the scrutiny of Reyes. The two Hellhounds had set up for the gym to get rid of their pent-up aggression but now it seemed that the Blackwatch commander is trying to nitpick at some things from the vigilantes under his roof.

“I picked up on some things during the war,” Quiet divulges blandly.

Reyes purses his lips, looking between Conall and to her, “You two were together then? I remember that your records said you used to be a soldier, Darrow.”

Conall snorts, slapping his thigh and gesturing to Quiet, his blue and brown eyes bright, “ _Mo thóin_ , _Sg_ _áile_ here woods hae killed me withit onie hesitation. Thes one’s a radge, _Ceannasaí_.”

Quiet tips her head to the side, not a lick of amusement on her face at Conall’s jab. She had years of dealing with both Calum and Conall’s ways. Reyes’ confusion has him staring at Conall for an explanation.

“The Darrows found Karou and I first,” Quiet mutters some choice words in her native tongue, “I just happened to attack first.”

Conall bares his teeth at Reyes, both joking and still unapologetic with his bluntness, “Goddamn _diabhal_ is whit she is.”

“Watch it, _Lup_ ,” she bares her own teeth, dark eyes grave, “no need to tell your _povești fantomă_.”

He snorted, “They shood listen tae mah ghost stories, _Sg_ _áile_. They will need tae beat ye one day— cannae stay on top forever.”

Reyes only watches the two bicker, shifting from one to the other and back. He finds some relief in knowing the two are not involved with each other and blinks at the strange realization of even thinking of that. Quiet flicks three fingers in a claw like movement, her knuckles aimed to him, whilst she reverts to cursing at Conall in only her mother tongue. The man does it back but simply using his middle finger, keeping his knuckles aimed at her as well.

“Ye nightmare. I huvnae beaten ye ance,” Conall only smirks when Quiet glares at him.

She sniffs, the corner of her mouth twitching in either amusement or irritation and it could possibly be both, “You hold back, _Lup_. After Lisbon.”

Conall frowns. Reyes can see the guilt churning in those mismatched eyes of the demolitionist. But with the way Quiet speaks, nonchalant and only less biting as usual, they must have already absolved the matter between each other. The Hellhound merely clucks his tongue before resuming the bickering match. But this time, he aims for Reyes himself.

“Whit say ye, _Ceannasaí_?” His mismatched eyes are glowing with mischief.

Reyes smirks, “Get up from the mats and I’ll take you on, Darrow.”

Reyes nods to Quiet. She stares at him, dragging it out with the way she bides her time. She tips her barely tips her chin to him and then steps back. The muscles of her back and shoulders flex as she pulls off her compression shirt and switch it out for a fresh hoodie that has the Blackwatch logo on her chest, and zipping it up with a flick of her wrist.

“He fights harder with others, so, keep your eyes open, _Comandat_ ,” Quiet only gives that much of a warning to Reyes.

“Now, now, _Sg_ _áile_ , I never give up yer tells.” Conall clucks his tongue in mock fashion.

Reyes chuckles low, eyes still following her as she exist the gym, “Let’s dance, Darrow.”

\- ༺༒༻ -

The dorms that houses the agents of Blackwatch are militaristic. They are rooms meant for a single body. The walls are cement but that does not stop people from hearing everything from even on the end of the hallways. Quiet never has seen her room, she barely slept there much less lived in it.

No, she would always be found in Karou’s room— if people happened to actually need to find her.

Karou lays atop of Quiet. The two winding down from everything as they lay on a bed that should really only fit one person. Though while it is not uncomfortable, it just small and not meant for two bodies. The fuzzy blanket is thrown over the two of them.

Quiet smiles tiredly when she feels digits lightly scratching at her scalp. Karou loved playing with her hair, she usually styled it every day. It is practically her right to be able to play with Quiet’s hair when she felt like it

“Do you think about him?” Karou’s lilting voice ever smooth.

Quiet breathes in after a pause, “Who?”

“The commander,” Karou is trailing a finger over a scar that only she knows is there, as she is only one to know Quiet’s body so intimately.

“Which one?”

Quiet smiles as she hears Karou’s groan. She knew exactly who she spoke of. After all, the both of them had been so well versed with one another’s interests for the years of being together. It should be almost a decade now of having left Karou’s old home in Thessaloniki to help in a war that they had no business in partaking. But Karou could be persistent, after all; Quiet had caved under Karou’s wish on wanting to become a sniper.

“Don’t play that game with me, my love.”

But is that not the exciting part?

The first lesson had been to teach Karou on patience. And she had been terrible at it, at first.

“I’m waiting for you to make your move, if you truly wish for him,” Quiet opens an eye briefly before closing it and yawning.

Karou shakes her head, ignoring the bait, “I see the way he watches you closely. Not purely curious, suspicious or anything of that sort. Just follows you with his eyes.”

What is that phrase? Ah, yes, a puppy. A lovesick puppy.

Karou laughs when she hears Quiet’s playful quip.

Quiet lightly caresses Karou’s cheek with her scarred fingertips, asking with a light breath, “Do you want him?”

Because Karou always said Quiet is rather self-sacrificing. The Romanian is always wanting to give more than she should. But only if it meant for Karou’s happiness. Karou lightly presses her lips to Quiet’s fingertips. The Czech purses her lips afterwards, at the bit of deflection.

“I think he matches to you. I remember the days you watched me like a hawk when I did chores around the old house,” Karou nuzzles against her cheek.

Well, is that not amusing?

And to think; Quiet had been strangely obedient, listening to Karou’s demands concerning Quiet’s recovery but still had been guarded. She had been enamored by the once stranger’s behavior— kind and honest, even in the presence of someone like Quiet. But it was obvious that Quiet had been more enthralled than suspicious of the woman with blue hair, who had fished Quiet out of the sea and taken her home to heal. Not many people like Karou existed.

Their overwhelming kindness is born from the cruelty of others.

Karou had described the Romanian as earth. The sniper with a name and yet is nameless is steadfast, unyielding but always able to change, to become altered by outside elements. She stood for years, unshakeable and untouched by the matters of others. Her blood is the roots of the world, ever present and ever growing to reach until no corner remains unreachable. And when her reach had finally found an end, after a betrayal and loss so deep, she had been forced to bend to others.

If Quiet is the earth, then Karou would be water. She is an untamable expanse, she is the proof that people will always have a deep, restless soul within themselves. She is the waking dream of artists and poets, the wings of travelers and is kin to the stars with her molten eyes. She has the scent of the sea itself clinging to her golden skin, her voice is of the shipwrecked songs of the earth’s forefathers. Within her arms, Quiet finds a place to become reborn.

And Gabriel Reyes, commander of Blackwatch, is fire. With burning passion, bright and holy and all consuming, he has the forgotten songs of long lost saints in his heartblood. He has a hunger in those dark eyes of his, the kind that makes gods falls to their knees and pray for saving grace. His mind is cynical, his soul obsessive, they are two halves made into a whole and he is tired of being the one to hollow other’s bones out to build kingdoms upon kingdoms, thrones upon thrones.

He was never meant to be controlled or underneath men of false power.

\- ༺༒༻ -

When Karou opened the door, blue hair slightly mussed up and smiling face a bright pink, Gabriel knew he should have turned away and left at that instant. After all, why would the person he would be looking for somehow be in another person’s room? But then again, the Hellhounds were a tight knit group.

But no.

He stared at Karou, stared as she speaks in light questioning and drawling curiosity. He stared as he noticed movement behind the blue haired Czech. He realized that there is a figure clad in a black sweater and familiar logoed leggings emerging from the bed just peeking within sight behind the corner wall of the room. He gaped as _Quiet_ brushes away her long hair, the chocolate brown to golden brown ombre and red tints of her hair dazzling in the sun from the small window above the desk in the room.

When the tall Romanian realizes that he is openly staring, _at her_ , she turns those dark eyes to him. She smiles slowly at him. And before he can stop looking to her, she lifts her index and middle fingers to her lips in a victory sign, blue fingernails fresh, and sticks her tongue out.

He startles at the _piercing_ in her _tongue_.

The Hellhound snipers watch as Reyes gawps at them, he is quick to back up and find an exit route away from Karou’s door. Agents move out of his way as he stiffly strolls with murder in his steps. Karou pouts, leaning against the door frame and mock glares back into the room to the taller women with a playful tone.

“Quiet, I thought you said we should not be scandalizing people?”

The Romanian looks unapologetic, “I did not do anything that you were not going to do.”

“At least look a little repentant, my love,” Karou faces the hallway as she hears someone stepping closer to the door.

Quiet lightly presses her lips to Karou’s neck, a smug smile forming, “Ah… but where is the fun in that?”

The man lowly crows out in amusement, “Indeed, _mon cher_. Where would the fun be in that, if not effectively flustering the illustrious Blackwatch Commander? I do not believe I have ever seen the man so red in the face, if not for being angry at Agent McCree back when he used to a foulmouthed gang member.”

Quiet stiffens at hearing the accented drawl of a certain Frenchman but does not move from Karou’s side. Gerard Lacroix moves with nimble grace and a suave smile on his face.

“Good evening, _mademoiselles_ ,” he greets them with a flourish of his hand, “I was hoping to ask for Quiet’s company, only if you would not mind that, Miss Sekova?”

\- ༺༒༻ -

“You’re the one who got the Moroccan glass star to me…”

Quiet began to despise the Frenchman. All it had taken was a promise of Karou meeting Amélie Lacroix, for a shopping date, to leave Quiet with Gerard.

It also did not take that long for Quiet to read him, she had thought that the expensive gift that had been lovingly wrapped with the intention of giving it to Karou at the end of the mission would have been lost somewhere when the Hellhounds were detained by Blackwatch. And somehow, it ended up at Quiet’s dorm and sitting on her bed oh so innocently.

“I assumed it was a birthday gift for Miss Sekova,” his smile made Quiet want to deck him in the face.

Quiet watches him, frowning deeply. He knew it wasn’t just a gift for Karou. It has been an indulgent feeling to give gifts to Karou. She had collection of glass art that decorated her dorm room now.

Their silence becomes a buffer between them. He knew that her temper would only hold for so long. And she had no intention of wanting to actually physically fight him at the moment. She is tired and she wanted to sleep with Karou in her arms.

“Why stand in the shadows, _petit Fantôme_?”

Well… is that not just amusing?

And this is considering that Gerard Lacroix, renowned agent of Overwatch and shadowy spy for Blackwatch, is shorter than Quiet. The man stood only two inches away from a full six feet whereas Quiet did stand fully at six feet. But he does compete with muscle mass, the man has muscles that are obviously denser than hers underneath his formfitting fatigues and stylish suspenders.

But she takes her victory where she can— _legs for days_ , is what Sun had once said about Quiet’s height.

Not that Gerard would ever experience having his strengths turned against him by her, because this is a game. A long-term game not meant for a winner to emerge, but a game to see how well they stand on their own. A game, she could play along with easily. Because otherwise, she would have to kill the Frenchman for being her opponent.

She was never one to hold back her punches or finishing strikes. Nor was he.

Quiet has always been fighting, always surviving and killing and reaping the rewards with her own hands, since she could _remember_. Gerard is a man of networks and connections, he has his own share of games that have been won or thrown off the tables as he saw fit for his own advantage.

But they both shared that same ruthlessness, that same merciless and unforgiving outlook of life that got them through the years and to the present time of where they stand now. The simple notion that both him and herself were treacherous to be together anywhere, anytime is a good way to describe their matching dualities. They were a dangerous force when combined, and only promised of a perilous aftermath.

The sniper tilts her head, unbound hair tumbling past her shoulders and reaching to her waist with the thick ombre waves, as her dark, dark eyes carefully pick the Frenchman apart. Her scarred hands, elegant long fingers and sinuous, curling palms carefully grip upon opposite forearms after she crosses her arms underneath her bust.

To Gerard, she is the perfect picture of ice veins and dark, secreted truths.

Quiet faces the fresh air gifted by the world around her, her eyelashes fanning over her cheek as she listens to the wind. Her marble skin remains untouched by the cold of the Swiss mountains whereas Gerard’s golden, earthy tones are tinted pink across his face. The spy watches the vigilante with a concealed joy— because it has been an extensive amount of time since he has found someone so delightfully unmatched by others. And it is with a sprinkle of jealousy to know that she thrived in the cold unlike him.

What was the question again? Ah… right.

 “Because, I am content with where I stand, _spion_. As long as I have her to stand with.”

Truth.

Nothing but the truth on her tongue, because she could never lie when it is about Karou. They had shared a lifetime with one another— another life of sea and snow, flowers and bullets, blood and pain, love and healing. After all… they shared rings on the finger that is connected directly to the heart— rings that made promises of more lifetimes together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romanian  
> Floare la ureche - a flower at the ear, it is the Romanian proverb for child's play, a piece of cake, etc.  
> Comandat - commander  
> Lup - wolf  
> povești fantomă - ghost stories  
> spion - spy
> 
> Czech  
> S potěšením, fešák - with pleasure, handsome
> 
> Gaelic  
> Sgàile - shadow  
> Ceannasaí - commander  
> Mo thóin - my ass or like hell  
> diabhal - devil
> 
> Spanish  
> Jefe - boss
> 
> French  
> mon cher - my dear  
> mademoiselles - miss  
> petit Fantôme - little ghost


End file.
